OK Question - why did you start?

[Small pumpkin]

I didn't really start growing until I moved up here 10 years ago. I start because I was very unimpressed by the limited choose, poor quality and extortionate prices available. Then I pulled my first home grown carrot and I was hooked.
Nan always liked her gardening. She taught me how to puddle things in and how to save flower seeds . Grandad hated gardening but always enjoyed growing strawberries and tomatoes .

[Cadalot]

My gardening knowledge was very limited, yes I have done my share of hard landscaping and grunt work, trimming hedges and cutting grass.

But in 2011 my brother-in-law Keith gave me a few excess plants from his greenhouse, and I also grew potatoes in garden sacks, 2 x cabbage, 2 x cauliflower, runner beans, my spring onions and beetroot didn’t amount to anything, but I really enjoyed eating the result of what did grow.

I had always grown tomatoes and had the kids help when they were young with watering and harvesting them

It’s kind of Keith’s fault that I have the allotment as I went down to help him mark out his plot in 2012 as it was so overgrown and the boundaries were not clearly defined. In addition the local authorities are splitting a number of plots making them half the size.

He informed me that when he selected his plot that there were still three plot available, so I put my name on the waiting list thinking that I may be lucky next year. Turns out that the plots were so overgrown that people on the list didn’t want them and I accelerated to the top of the list and obtained Plot 1A which had the least amount of growth and hopefully debris

Andy (also 54 at the time) who took on a plot with 8ft high brambles over the back half and this he cut his way in and to his surprise found an 8 x 6 feet shed against the rear fence full of debris and tools from the previous tenant.

So knowing that my knowledge of growing thing was limited I purchased the three books, The Dummies Guide to Allotments, The Essential Allotment Guide & Vegetable Growing Month by Month

My diary / Blog documents my journey through the years and three plots

[chillithyme]

I forgot about how much I loved plants and flowers during my teens, until I got into my 20s when I bought an overpriced chilli growing kit as a gift for somebody, but then ended up growing it myself

[Guest]

Because I can. I find seeds to plants and twigs rooting etc. fascinating. My starting triggers were

My Dad getting me to root bits of mint in water
My Nanny drying sweet pea pods on the windowsill and hearing them popping.
Also my Nanny always had random things in with her house plants - lemon pips, bits that had broken off other plants etc.

How I went from that to what I have now, I have no idea

[Lumpy]

Such wonderful answers. It’s lovely to read them.

[Jimny14]

When I bought my first house a few years ago (I'd been rather mobile before then and hadn't found anywhere to put down roots so was renting mainly places without gardens) I planted an apple tree, rhubarb and some gooseberry, raspberries etc as I love these fruit and they are difficult to get or expensive (apples just taste better straight off the tree). The garden was small and mainly flagged, I also got a small veg trug and started growing as much as I could in it and did some new potatoes in sacks.
When we moved in together to our house now there was a portioned off area of the garden down the side of the drive partitioned by a hedge from the main back garden. It isn't very private and had a chicken run in and an apple tree. It was passed by the management that I could turn this area in to a veg patch and I marked out a bed with timber that was at the house and edged it up and removed the turf. Compost bins and leaf mulch cages came next and then the obligatory soft fruit bushes made a reappearance (there was already rhubarb elsewhere in the garden). The trug is stationed by the back door and is now just for salads. Anywhere I can get away with sticking veg/fruit I do, hence the jerusalem artichoke bed down the back of the garage.
This spring my 18 month old had great fun helping by putting the seed potatoes in to the holes I'd made and burying them. I'm not sure how long she's going to want to help but I'll always find her a job.
PS everyone else's stories are really interesting so thought I'd add mine.

[JanieB]

Both my grandmothers were into gardening, the paternal one flowers and the maternal one food. The maternal grandmother had an enormous greenhouse.

My mum wasn’t interested but my dad tried hard with limited time in the first 2 houses with gardens that we lived in. He then bought a house with 3 and half acres of land. Although he hired a part-time gardener the rest of us had to help. I hated it mainly because I got the jobs nobody else would do. My brother got to mow the lawn on a sit on mower. My mum refused point blank to garden and my sister and I got things like weeding the herbaceous border. My sister and I did, however, get to pick and sell extraneous produce for extra pocket money.

This all changed when I got married and had my own garden. After my husband and myself cleared all the rubbish out I was left with the care of it. And I loved it. I started out buying plants, mostly flowers, from the offers in magazines, and taking cuttings and roots from neighbours, family and friends. I moved on to a few veggies. I bought a “Norfolk” greenhouse and grew tomatoes, cucumbers, melons and other salads in it.

I’ve moved a few times since, a couple of times into rented properties which had gardens I was only allowed to keep tidy. I now have my last home, with garden, and I love it.

[Runtpuppy]

My dad used to love growing stuff. He was never into edibles, but our first floor house had a large verandah/courtyard that was filled with plant pots. He was very interested in creating bonsais (in retrospect, he probably wasn't very good at it, but he did have a nicely shaped banyan tree in a pot).

I remember pots and pots of plants, with a lot of them filled with yellow and pink-flowering portulaca. These were promptly decimated by the homing pigeons I started breeding.

In 1992, we had the Babri Masjid riots, and there was a curfew in the city. I must have been around 11-12 years old. For some reason, my underdeveloped brain decided that curfew=no shops=no food=starvation, so I put a couple of potatoes in one of the empty pots. Just so we didn't starve, you know.

The curfew ended soon-ish, and no, we didn't starve, but we did get a bagful of lovely new potatoes which mum put in a curry. They were delicious.

At that point, I was under the impression that you needed a garden to grow vegetables. I think it was mainly because my uncle had a huge lawn and had created a kitchen garden in the back. This idea sorta stuck with me for a long time.

Then I moved here and wanted to grow my own blueberries. But while I was researching blueberry growing requirements, someone gave me a few strawberry plants. I had read it was easy to grow those, but was still amazed at how easily those pretty little flowers became fruit.

I think that's when I caught the bug, but it manifested itself quite slowly. I think I am well and truly done for now.

[nickdub]

...
This spring my 18 month old had great fun helping by putting the seed potatoes in to the holes I'd made and burying them. I'm not sure how long she's going to want to help but I'll always find her a job.
PS everyone else's stories are really interesting so thought I'd add mine.

Reminds me of a story about my mother-in-law - she had an unofficial allotment in Vilnius and took the dog with her one year when planting potatoes - after getting to the end of a row she found the poodle who had been working hard too, proudly standing by a pile of unearthed potatoes which he presented for her approval just behind where she finished her planting - I'm sure the dog was glad to have a new game to play with this human :-)

[greenishfing]

My husband, for some unknown reason, wanted an allotment...... still don't know why, but we ended up with two. I never wanted to grow things....it just sort of crept up on me. Then when we got our first greenhouse given (I didn't want it) it somehow became my job to use it and the first time I grew tomatoes I was hooked. The smell immediately transported me back in time to a forgotten memory of being in my grandad's greenhouse (he died when I was very young) and I could remember every detail, his wooden water butts, little stove with rocking chair at the side and lots of tomato plants with that unmistakable smell. Now I do most of the work at the allotments and enjoy both growing and eating my produce.

[Miss Mousetrousers]

In the late fifties my late dad grew veg on a small allotment to help with the home expenses. Later on we moved to a new home so he carried on doing the same and got a little wooden greenhouse for his toms. I was never interested in gardening of any sort until by chance I came across a programme with Geoff Hamilton. From then on I was hooked!

[Chrissyteacup]

When I was a child my granddad had an allotment and my dad had a veg plot on the side of the house I grew up with my own little corner of the veg patch and loved growing stuff on my windowsils when we were house buying in my mind a garden with room for a veg patch was essential the two greenhouses we got too were just a bonus!

[burnie]

I started by helping my Dad and it earnt me my pocket money, mostly weeding, this was before I started school. He built me my own greenhouse from wood and polythene, it was about three feet cubed and I grew some Lupins in it(I think it fell over in the first winter though).

[Kirk]

Like a lot of things: It seemed a good idea at the time.

[gardening_gal]

I was never really into gardening for a long time, all that grass cutting and weeding just seemed never ending work with little enjoyment in between.

Then I got some strawberry plants and liked the idea of looking after them and helping them grow, especially when I got strawberries back in return. I also really liked watching for seeds germinating and got excited when they grew into big plants. I realised then I wasn't so much as a gardener as a grower and I gradually got more edible things growing.

One day I came across something online about a polytunnel and I really wanted one, if I'm honest it was largely because I wanted somewhere of my own to go to to chill out when the family were driving me nuts. It was years before I got one but when I did, I felt happy in there and so growing things became my happy place. It's never changed.