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Sheds: The new spas

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Something strange is happening in my town. Glamorous mums are dropping off their children at school then disappearing. They are returning home, hours later, tired and sweaty, with smiles on their faces.

These working women have discovered the joys of the allotment. And these mums, my mates, would pick their veg plot over the nail bar and gin bar (well, most of the time).

They got their land after being on a waiting list for three months and it costs them £20 a year. It’s fair to say they have transformed the place in more ways than one… some

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of the older allotment holders probably can’t believe their luck with their new neighbours.

Their plot is called 34A, after a bra size. They decided against the three hoes, which is lucky as there are way more than three of them now. It is a chintzy, colourful, dirty little oasis. One of them is a designer so this place was always going to have style as well as lettuce.

They managed to get their hands on a free shed and painted it pastel colours and stuck a Welsh dresser in the corner to store odds, sods, seeds, teabags, hand cream and a mirror.

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So they can wipe the mud from their faces before the school pick-up.

They have a painted stripy bench outside, too, where more and more mums are gathering with flasks of tea to help, dig, bitch and generally avoid having to go home to scrape dried-up Weetabix off floors. They even have a bottle opener on the fence. As if I needed any more reason to join them.

An actress and mum of two is focusing on flowers and there is a little patch given over to that with a pretty path made of tiles. Spades and forks are hanging neatly in the shed. They have

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planted garlic and lettuce and chard and a couple of fruit trees, given to them by fellow allotment holders, are clinging on to life at the bottom of their plot.

“It’s rewarding,” they say.

“We don’t have a clue what we are doing,” they say.

“I don’t actually have time to sort out my own garden,” they say.

It is taking over their lives, in the best possible way. They meet in a micropub away from their menfolk and little people to look at seed catalogues and have a swift half. One, a social worker, made a beeline for the

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place on her 40th birthday. Who can blame her?

Allotments used to be where old blokes in smelly jumpers would hide from their wives and grow peas in peace. No more, I tell you. As well as becoming a hangout for the organic brigade, they clearly serve as the best kind of therapy for world-weary working mums. Keep your spas. Grab your spades.

Allotments have been around for centuries but properly kicked off in Victorian times, with land handed over to poor families to grow food. Their popularity boomed in World War II, with the Dig For Victory

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campaign, when public and private places were turned over for veg patches, including London parks. By the end of the war there were 1,300,000 allotments in Britain. Now about a quarter of a million survive – well, councils are up against it to get the most from every scrap of land.

But you are not guaranteed a peaceful oasis. Incidents reported to the authorities include poisoning prize-winning pumpkins, sabotaging tomatoes, allotment holders living in their sheds, nicking fruit from neighbours and gardening while drunk.

Although none of that

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from my mates, I’m sure.
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- 19 Oct 18

Something strange is happening in my town. Glamorous mums are dropping off their children at school then disappearing. They are returning home, hours later, tired and sweaty, with smiles on their faces.

These working women have discovered the joys of the allotment. And these mums, my mates, would pick their veg plot over the nail bar and gin bar (well, most of the time).

They got their land after being on a waiting list for three months and it costs them £20 a year. It’s fair to say they have transformed the place in more ways than one… some of the older allotment holders probably can’t believe their luck with their new neighbours.

Their plot is called 34A, after a bra size. They decided against the three hoes, which is lucky as there are way more than three of them now. It is a chintzy, colourful, dirty little oasis. One of them is a designer so this place was always going to have style as well as lettuce.

They managed to get their hands on a free shed and painted it pastel colours and stuck a Welsh dresser in the corner to store odds, sods, seeds, teabags, hand cream and a mirror. So they can wipe the mud from their faces before the school pick-up.

They have a painted stripy bench outside, too, where more and more mums are gathering with flasks of tea to help, dig, bitch and generally avoid having to go home to scrape dried-up Weetabix off floors. They even have a bottle opener on the fence. As if I needed any more reason to join them.

An actress and mum of two is focusing on flowers and there is a little patch given over to that with a pretty path made of tiles. Spades and forks are hanging neatly in the shed. They have planted garlic and lettuce and chard and a couple of fruit trees, given to them by fellow allotment holders, are clinging on to life at the bottom of their plot.

“It’s rewarding,” they say.

“We don’t have a clue what we are doing,” they say.

“I don’t actually have time to sort out my own garden,” they say.

It is taking over their lives, in the best possible way. They meet in a micropub away from their menfolk and little people to look at seed catalogues and have a swift half. One, a social worker, made a beeline for the place on her 40th birthday. Who can blame her?

Allotments used to be where old blokes in smelly jumpers would hide from their wives and grow peas in peace. No more, I tell you. As well as becoming a hangout for the organic brigade, they clearly serve as the best kind of therapy for world-weary working mums. Keep your spas. Grab your spades.

Allotments have been around for centuries but properly kicked off in Victorian times, with land handed over to poor families to grow food. Their popularity boomed in World War II, with the Dig For Victory campaign, when public and private places were turned over for veg patches, including London parks. By the end of the war there were 1,300,000 allotments in Britain. Now about a quarter of a million survive – well, councils are up against it to get the most from every scrap of land.

But you are not guaranteed a peaceful oasis. Incidents reported to the authorities include poisoning prize-winning pumpkins, sabotaging tomatoes, allotment holders living in their sheds, nicking fruit from neighbours and gardening while drunk.

Although none of that from my mates, I’m sure.

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Kay is a journalist, working for assorted national tabloids, and is also a mum of two. She desperately wants small humans to love the outdoors as much as she did as a kid, when she squished up rose petals to make perfume and dug for worms. She has uprooted from London and now lives back up North. She runs the Bad Gardeners' Club website, where she weeds out garden jargon and helps fellow clueless gardeners with blogs, advice and cautionary tales.

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