The endeavours of a farmer’s daughter
Sam Bennett meets Veronica Collicutt
“I’ve been up to dig my plot in the
frost,” Veronica Collicutt says of her
Carterton allotment, as we discuss the
myth that there’s nothing you can do in
the winter months garden-wise. “I just
turn the ground over and then the frost
breaks it all down – it’s like sand then.”
Veronica has won Carterton’s annual
best allotment competition numerous
times, as well as having a national
gardening accolade.
“There was this bloke who said to me
once: ‘you won’t win best Carterton
allotment next year.’
“And I told him I was going for the
nationals,” she recalls. I had no idea
how to do it.” She ended up going in
for Garden News’ allotment contest,
entering alongside thousands of
other gardeners. First sending in
photographs of her work she reached
the next stage of the competition and
went all the way to the final – which
saw the judges pay her Carterton
patch a visit.
“They came out and judged it,” she
says, “and then I never thought any
more about it, and then the phone
went and it was Garden News saying
‘congratulations, you’ve come first.’
I couldn’t believe it, I was in every
magazine, I was on television, I was the
first woman ever to win it.”
“If you had seen some of the plots…”
she says, drawing attention to the
high standards of her competitors,
“but mine was, I must admit, I’m not
bragging, brilliant.”
Veronica, a farmer’s daughter, couldn’t
put a figure on the amount she saves
through her gardening activities, but
it’s clear she is saving, plus granting
herself decent food. “I grow every fruit
under the sun,” she states. “I make all
my own preserves and jams, I freeze all
my excess French and runner beans,
carrots and peas – so all year round we
have healthy food.”
But it’s about more than competitions
and cost-cutting. “It’s the enjoyment
as well,” she tells me. “When I lost my
mum and dad, I really went downhill.
I didn’t have a nervous breakdown
but it devastated me, and I think the
allotment kept me going.”
Our conversation took place in
Veronica’s back garden, which she
also devotes a lot of time to, but we
managed to squeeze in a trip to see
her allotment. Yet to grow into its
full glory, you could still envisage the
beauty and colour that would soon
engulf her plot of land.
Other people’s patches are, to say the
least, not as well tended to. “The only
thing that really annoys me is there’s
a big waiting list for the allotments,”
Veronica says. “Some people come
here once a year, but if they pay their
fee for that plot they get to keep it and
there’s nothing you can do about it. I
think it’s about time we had the power
to say: ‘Right: you’ve not looked after
it, you haven’t been up here, and we’re
not taking your money anymore.’ ”
This would then allow one of those on
the waiting list, who may have been
on there four or five years, a shot at
growing – and maybe even a go at
something national…
A Green Carterton
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