Is it just you...

[smallblueplanet]

What a wide-ranging mixture of gardeners' significant others there seems to be......

I'm the planner and the supervisor and the buyer and do occasional watering and well, I don't do the hard work - thats what the OH is for!

[nick the grief]

I've had my allotment 2 years and OH doesn't even know, or isn't bothered where it is! Showed her the google earth image of it and she said "Hmmm"

Suits me though!

No what you mean Snadger Mrs G has only been to mine once and then all she said was "Why haven't you got Strawberries like the rest"

So I told her " You don't use the big fork, you can't use the little'un" ... then she hit me

[seasprout]

Gardening & growing is mine, all mine.. although he cooks a bit. Trying to educate him that he is allowed to pop into the garden for spuds from tubs or a few herbs. Instead he waits for me to come home and get them. Bless.

[kirsty b]

The gardening is my baby, but he helps with heavy stuff, like demolishing the shed and buliding a new hen run after the fire. He'll go down a feed the chooks for me when I'm on an early shift.

[piskieinboots]

Hum, more of us with an OH not really getting the gardening thing - keeps things interesting in the relationship, 'what did you do today dear?' 'I planted more spuds, sowed seeds, pulled rhubarb, blah blah blah' ...oh it seems that OH has zoned out

I'm grateful for the grunt and muscle

[carlseawolf]

me mainly , but other half would love to come down more often but to many kids at home so one of us has to babysit.

[shirlthegirl43]

Madmax is getting more interested in the garden. He does the heavy tidying and stuff (when he is home and the weather is suitable). He planted spuds last year when he was home and was very excited about them and keen to earth up and all that. He was heartbroken though when I had to tell him they had blight (by which time he was abroad again). He can almost recognise weeds now and will help with digging if he isn't busy doing other jobs.

[Two_Sheds]

OH would only come to the allotment if it had Sky Sports on
He can't understand why I love it so much, he phones me up if I've been gone longer than an hour ...

[piskieinboots]

he phones me up if I've been gone longer than an hour ...

awww love him - and I'm guessing that you are so absorbed that you hardly even hear the phone

[SJA]

My OH comes to the allotment occasionally

her normal response is

"...Franks allotment looks much nicer than yours - you need to get it looking like that.."
"...Bob's got hardly any weeds - why have you got so many..."
"...Are you going to paint the shed - it looks a right mess..."
"...you've been up there an hour already what have you been doing..."

what she forgets is....

1. Frank has had his allotment for 32years - not 1 year
2. Bob is retired and spends every day up at the lottie
3. I built the shed out of pallets - damn hard work too
4. The first half hour of every day on the lottie is spent listening to Frank & Bob saying 1,2,3!

Nevertheless I do love it when she comes up - she can speak to Frank & Bob and allow me an extra 1/2 hour of digging/weeding - and I'm looking forward as "little-un" grows up and he too can come and do some digging too.

Stuart

ps I did finally paint the shed - bright blue!

[piskieinboots]

lovely SJA lovely

[Matt.]

My OH comes to the allotment occasionally

her normal response is

"...Franks allotment looks much nicer than yours - you need to get it looking like that.."
"...Bob's got hardly any weeds - why have you got so many..."
"...Are you going to paint the shed - it looks a right mess..."
"...you've been up there an hour already what have you been doing..."

SJA that is hilarious because its exactly the same as myself.
At the mere suggestion of visting my plot I also have to justify against questions like

"...but what about painting the skirting boards?"
"...but when are you going to fix the light?"
"...when are you going to do the washing up?"
"...I thought you went last weekend?"

Its definietly one sided on my plot in terms of effort but every now and again I get a helping hand. Trouble is I can gurantee boredom starts after only 30 minutes and the trip is cut short. Digging is a no go, weeding not much better but watering, mowing and harvesting seem to be acceptable! Still, I think allotmenting goes down a lot better than previous hobbies like radio controlled planes/cars and OH even took an interest in what seeds I'm ordering so maybe times are changing?

[lainey lou]

Ah Piskie! Mine is a Military man too, is good at taking orders and doesn't mind a bit of hard graft. That's about as far as it goes which suits me fine. My plot is my little sanctuary and although I like the odd visit from hubby and the kids I must say I love it best when I'm there on my own, absorbing the peace and getting my hands dirty. Bliss!

[Farmer_Gyles]

i dont have an OH, but i do have 2 kids and a girlfriend (kids live with me, girlfriend lives over the road)
i've tried encouraging the kids to get stuck in but no chance
girlfriend has a fairly big garden of her own and looks after that and has helped with flowers and shrubs in my garden, but won't help with veggies - she'll happily eat my veggies tho!
oh well .....

[veg4681]

Definitely mostly me but I don't mind since my DH too has his own specialised hobby to absorb his thoughts daily. He can be useful for primarily cutting the grass, drilling holes for putting up hanging basket brackets and trellis, constructing the raised bed, sometimes a man-job of heavy digging, emptying the compost bin and soon he'll have to put together the greenhouse for me as I'm a little clueless and not confident.

In the past, he's block paved the garden patio and built a herb wheel with reclaimed blue bricks, built our first composting area in red bricks, built rockery garden with big blue slates, built a mini Japanese theme garden, put up border fencing with concrete posts so really who am I to complain when he doesn't take interest in general gardening.

All he ever ask for every year is that we have several hanging baskets in our garden. Although he doesn't decide what vegetables we should grow, he doesn't shy away from naming veg that he thinks is not worthwhile (carrots, celery, sweetcorn, chunk brassicas that are either too cheap to buy or take too long to grow etc), so he's pretty mentally engaged on what's going around even though he doesn't get his hands dirty...so I'm not totally alone. Oh he's my tomato taster/critic too as I'm no good in telling apart.