Out and About Spring 2021

GARDENING David Cole has had an allotment in Newbury for more than 30 years. He’s learned what works best and how to get the tastiest vegetables through ‘trial and error’ over the years. He shares some of the techniques he uses to get the best out of his plot

D avid Cole has an allotment at One Tree Park, between Fifth Road and Bartlemy Road in Newbury. He says: “I am not a professional, my experience comes from helping my father from the age of 12 at Hermitage, where we lived.

Allotments generally have become extremely popular over the last 20 or 30 years and David puts this down to television programmes such as the sit-com The Good Life and the reality programme Tales of The River Cottage with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

My experience is helping my father, then trial and error on my own allotment

“From 1982 to 1993 OTP went from around one third occupancy to a waiting list, which has continued to be the situation ever since and this also applies to the other five allotment sites in Newbury.” Events over the last year have also shown an increase in ‘growing your own’ with people turning to home produce during the lockdowns.

“We had three quarters of an acre of mainly vegetables, which nearly kept the family self-sufficient all year.”

After getting married in 1973, the Coles moved to Fifth Road in 1982 and as David himself says ‘the then steward of OTP bullied me into taking my first five pole allotment’. Fast-forward 30 years and David now has five of these plots. “My experience is helping my father, then trial and error on my own allotment. “If I write things that you have seen Monty Don or Alan Titchmarsh disagree with, the chances are they are correct!”

David says: “Newbury Town Council own – and have always given strong support to – all the sites and, especially during the recent pandemic, have gone out of their way to help us, working within government guidelines, when so easily they could have shut us down as some other councils did in other areas.”

O&A SPRING 2021 56