ALLOTMENT ON THE HILL

My husband Bryan grew up helping his grandfather to grow vegetables at the family home in Sussex (during the 50s) when they frequently used sewerage sludge as a fertiliser – and they both thought nothing of pulling out a carrot and munching on it.

I was brought up in Kenya with a climate that encouraged those wonderful fruits like paw paws (papinos), granadillas (passion fruit), bananas, pineapples and cape gooseberries. In later years, Kenya was to become an exporter of flowers and vegetables to other parts of Africa and beyond – with remarkable success.

When we were first married, and living in Kent, we had a happy time with our own small garden, complete