It's only a cabbage

I have other interests besides football, which is just as well because I’d probably just sit and stare at the walls during the two months between seasons. I must point out however that I’m not interested in all football, I couldn’t tell you who won last season’s FA Cup or who came second in the Premier League although I could probably hazard a good guess.

As far as my interest in football goes, it pretty much starts and finishes with Oldham Athletic but I do have a soft spot for Lincoln United who are currently in Division One East of the Northern Premier League. More about them some other time.

Gardening is my other passion or to be more specific, vegetable gardening. I am by no means an expert and to have any success at growing food you need an element of good fortune and decent weather. You also need a bit of knowledge about the subject and luckily there are numerous places on Facebook and the internet generally where you can find no end of advice. Most of it is absolutely crap but I would be failing in my duty to those of you who might have arrived here looking for help if I didn’t mention it.

I don’t come from a long line of growers, in fact the only plant I was interested in 50 years ago was the sort you smoked. When I first left home however, I was gifted a spider plant with strict instructions to look after it properly. I soon discovered that it was almost impossible to kill off and was therefore top of the list of things to give to people having a flat warming party. For months, I sat on the floor eating food out of tins with my fingers watching the spider plant gradually taking over the windowsill.

Generally, a young person’s experience of growing begins with mustard and cress (who eats that shit?), sunflowers and possibly potatoes grown in buckets. Their chances of progressing further once they’ve left school are slim unless they are transfixed with the sight of a spider plant. There are a few exceptions of course and I swear that a lot more young people would grow their own veg if there had been an allotment in GTA.

So it is usually the older generation who decide to call time on the patio bar and announce their intention to take on the supermarkets and turn the garden into a farm. This can be an absolute nightmare for everyone concerned or it can be the start of something that not only gives you a great amount of satisfaction, it might just improve your health as well.

Above is a cabbage I picked from the garden this morning. It might not look much but in my mind it is as important to my wellbeing as James Norwood’s goal for Oldham at Wembley on June 1st was. In my happy place, Norwood receives the lofted cabbage, shrugs off the attentions of a defender, chips the brassica away from the goalie and taps it into the net. And of course, the taste is delicious.