Gardening: Allotment tales

Like most allotmenteers, I love the feeling of being at least partly self-sufficient. Aside from concerns about climate change, it is something to eat vegetables warm from the sun, rather than flown hundreds of miles in a chilled aircraft. But with the sudden disruption caused by ash from an Icelandic volcano with an unpronounceable name, the reasons for having a plot seem more immediate.

Compared to 50 years ago, much more of our fresh fruit and vegetables comes from overseas. I remember when pineapple came in tins, grapes were luxury items you took to patients in hospital, and mangoes were almost unheard of.

Apparently it's cheaper to have soft fruit flown in from sunnier places than to pay for heating greenhouses here.

If you have an allotment, there are no problems with being self-sufficient in summer. Right now, asparagus, purple sprouting broccoli and Swiss chard are in full production. Rhubarb is at its tastiest and best with some to spare. Courgettes and runner beans are biding their time in the cold frame until the danger of frost has passed. Some rows of salad vegetables are well up. Peas and calabrese are well worth growing as they thrive in our cool Scottish summers which gives them a long harvesting period.

It's a bit more difficult keeping up a varied supply of winter vegetables. Some forward planning is essential. Planting out kale in midsummer doesn't seem to me like top priority compared with shelling peas and picking strawberries but it will pay dividends later on. The variety called "Hungry Gap" does just what its name implies. It's there for the picking when there is little else.

A fellow plotholder shared her secret. She reckoned that if a particular variety of vegetable sounded chilly, it would survive the worst of the cold weather. So for cabbages, some plants of Tundra, Alaska and January King should fit the bill nicely.

Past generations of gardeners relied on root vegetables stored in conical earth clamps with a plug of straw in the top for ventilation. Today there are varieties of pumpkins and squashes which grow well in Scotland and store for months. Braving bad weather and risking frozen fingers picking sprouts is not strictly necessary with some alternatives in the shed.

So now the chaos caused by Eyjafjallajkull has died down and holidaymakers are safely home, maybe it's time to re-think the importance of being self-sufficient.

• This article was first published in the Scotsman, May 8, 2010