Gardening: Allotment tales

Two exhibitions have caught my attention, both marking the 70th anniversary of the introduction of food rationing in Britain. In Edinburgh Castle's National War Museum there is one about Scottish land girls, the forgotten army of volunteers who turned their hands to everything from rat-catching to herding cattle. In London's Imperial War Museum is The Ministry of Food, which looks at how everyone adapted to food shortages, learning to be both frugal and inventive.

Wartime imported food cost the country dearly with British merchant ships being prime enemy targets. Self-sufficiency was a necessity. So every scrap of land was used for the war effort with lawns and flower borders becoming vegetable plots and playing fields dug up to grow cereal crops.

Kohl rabi was a favourite vegetable, quick-growing with little waste as both roots and leaves could be eaten. Recipes came from the government via short films shown at cinemas, rather than from celebrity chefs on the television.

We may not choose the wartime recipe for Woolton pie (www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/history4.html) today, but the underlying message of making the most out of what is locally available is just as relevant. While healthy nutrition, recycling and eating seasonal fruit and vegetables were the name of the game 70 years ago, the same ambitions lie behind the current surge in demand for allotments.

The incentive to grow your own food waned thanks to freezers and cheap imported fruit and vegetables. So a whole generation missed out on essential gardening skills. When I first got my plot, there were two or three couples whose gardening experience dated back to the Second World War. It was an education just to watch them. It was about small details such as the way they handled their tools, digging with an effortless rhythm. They looked after things too. Tools were wiped with an oily rag before being put away. Blades were sharpened on a whetstone.

There are plenty of gardening books, magazines and programmes but they are mostly a bit short on the finer points which make the difference between success and failure. If growing your own is made to sound too easy, newcomers won't be prepared for the occasional disaster. On the other hand, if it sounds too difficult, they may never get started. Watching the old-timers has a lot to recommend it.

Land Girls and Lumber Jills, National War Museum, Edinburgh Castle, until February 2011.

• This article was first published in The Scotsman, Saturday March 13, 2010