Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29: ‘Gardening has been my therapy’

For the Observer Food Monthly editor, who was raised in children’s homes and foster care, growing food and flowers has been his saving and his solace. In his garden journal cum memoir, extracted here, he unearths his rootsJune 2015
It is the month of early visits, of waking before 5am when the plot calls. The time of growth and hazel wigwams. Time to be concerned about seed. I lie awake – or sit at work – imagining the tender seedlings at the mercy of wind, rain, sun, slugs. Wi