I’ve been busying my spare time with this malarkey for six years now.

For some reason it has been an acceptable excuse for missing family gatherings and trips to Ikea (yes, I categorise them together).

The allotment plot has overwhelmingly been my friend.

It has rarely let me down and offered up a bounty of fresh vegetables, even when the rains persistently lashed down and turned the potato patch in a quagmire.

Neighbours have come and gone and I contentedly beam at the echoes of pals suggesting I wouldn’t last as long as a summer.

Well, I did – and without much heartache.

It has transformed the kitchen into an experimental lab where Barbara prepares jams and pies and I conjure up different ways to prepare a courgette.

The freezer is uncomfortably stocked with frozen beans and fruit – many of the bags long since frosted over — meaning dinnertime becomes a produce roulette.

Christmas gifts span from the latest grow-your-own cookbooks and patterned trowels to ill- fitting gloves and Homebase vouchers. They are all welcome stocking-fillers.

You can read blog after blog, but – fact is – you will only get up to speed with the wellies on.

The self-starter faces a daunting prospect of clearing the plot from the previous tenant, who is probably rocking gently in a darkened corner somewhere after weeds and blackfly crushed their self-sufficient dream.

The key is clambering over that first hurdle, coaxing the soil into life by letting manure rot in over a good number of weeks and keeping on top of things when the warm, damp weather creates a fertile storm in which 24 hours can turn mildly tended plots into a real jungle.

Pick hardy, banker crops early on. Pick plants which will ride out pesky conditions and offer you a big smile of satisfaction when they start producing vegetables. Don’t risk dismay by attempting complex fruit, or fiddly plants which need picking out.

Courgettes are battlers and runner beans left to grow up a sturdy frame have always got the thumbs up. They have never failed.

Plug plants from nurseries can vary in quality and sometimes wither fairly quickly. Best develop on your own windowsill – if you’re not lucky enough to have a greenhouse.

Give the plants proper protection. My first rows of cabbages were attacked in hours by a flock of hungry pigeons.

They must have been sitting in the trees evilly cackling at my naivety as I wandered off without covering the vulnerable blighters with a net. Use a net.

A good start is always vital. The virgin allotmenter can be disheartened in weeks. But stick with it — it really is worth it.