The Joy of Allotments: An Illustrated Diary of Plot 19

Humorous and informative, this personal journey follows the seasons on Plot 19 through Caroline Deput’s diary of two years on her garden allotment. Filled with the author’s original color drawings, it evokes the joys as well as the hard work of tending to a garden and the health and psychological benefits of growing food for oneself. Relating how her garden is the perfect place to go to escape the worries of daily life, Caroline’s entries follow the different rhythms of the seasons and her absorption in the tasks that need to be done: from spring as she plants with high hopes, to summers spent harvesting her first crop, to the autumn chores of sowing for the early Spring harvest. Gardeners in any locale will share in her—often misplaced—eternal optimism as she keeps her allotment sufficiently weeded, watered, and hoed to grow vegetables with such alluring names as Lady Balfour, Bull’s Blood, and Hurst Green Shaft.