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Kitchen Garden

SHARING A LIFETIME OF gardening knowledge

Before we get into the questions, Terry, we have to ask how your veggies are coping with all the rain?

They’ve really thrived in the last two weeks. April started cold and dry and May got gradually warmer. June got extremely warm and veg on this hillside is not acclimatised to warm weather – the Rhondda rarely gets above the mid-20s. We get more than enough rain to keep them going, but it really is thriving. As they say, everything in the garden is looking rosy.

So what are some of your earliest memories?

We only lived a hundred yards from this very site and I took my first plot at the age of 11. My father was here most days and I remember my mother saying to him: “Tom, take this boy from under my feet over to the plot with you.” I was only four years old and we marched through the allotments. At that time back in the 1950s, the allotments were male dominated. I remember looking at all these tall ex-miners and being petrified.

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