Bright future for royal parks allotments

It was so bright that we all wore sunglasses as we put potatoes, curly kale, runner beans, beetroot and broad beans into the beautifully tilled soil.

Now they are fully grown and there are going to be a series of teaching sessions at the allotment. Experts will be on hand between 11am and 3pm on 1, 9, 15 and 23 August.

Graham Hartley, assistant park manager of St James's Park, wants to show that you don't need a large garden to grow your own. "Even if you just have a window box, you can still enjoy the fun of producing healthy cheap food," he says.

If you don't want to go to a teaching session, you can visit the allotment any time between 10am and 5pm until October. The first session is being run by Geoffrey Kerton, a former Royal Parks constabulary officer who has been a passionate gardener since the Sixties. For any would-be gardener this is a great opportunity to learn how to get started.

The allotment is now in its third year. The bad news is that this is its final year, as it is due to be closed down at the end of the growing season. The good news is that the Royal Parks are planning on opening at least three "teaching allotments" in the heart of Regent's Park, not far from the zoo.

At the Taste of London, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and I launched the new allotment scheme. While we couldn't yet actually put our spades in the ground, we celebrated the event by photographing Hugh surrounded by the vegetables we had planted in March. They are going to be a great addition to the city, as well as being Capital Growth spaces, and I hope other parks will follow the Royal Parks' terrific initiative. There's a lot of space out there.

I know from experience just how tough it is getting a smallholding to stand on its own two feet as a commercial venture. With the best will in the world — and considerable amounts of money —some ventures just can't be made to pay their way.

At the beginning of the year, my husband Charlie and I decided to stop trying to run a smallholding on a commercial basis and gave the land and all the facilities to the local allotments association. I have to say it is the best decision I could have made.

I am no longer stressed about the pigs eating more in their lifetime than they would ever be worth as sausages. Nor am I worried about whether the chickens are laying enough eggs.

Now a group of families — eight to date with another eight set to join in the next few weeks — garden just for the pure joy of it. We swap vegetables, seeds, ideas and know-how. Every so often, if we have a surplus of something, we set up a stall at the local market and make a few bob to cover the cost of it, which is £50 a year each. I have eaten five times that amount already this year in produce from our small space.

It's wonderful to see that power of a community acting and pulling together and I feel far more equipped to talk about the benefits of communal gardening than I ever did before.