Page 11 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2021

Keep on digging
GEOFF BLOWER
This is based on an article published in the autumn issue of Stepforward the journal
of the limbless association you may like to use it for Simply Vegetables.
I have always been a keen gardener, also a motorcyclist both for everyday transport and off road sport, I’ve had a few knocks but my luck really ran out just short of my 75th birthday when a careless driver drove into me.
I was taken to the Royal London hospital with a crushed right leg, broken pelvis
and internal bleeding. The paramedics
later told me it was touch and go to get there in time. Unfortunately in spite of the medics valiant efforts it became apparent my leg was beyond repair I suffered
horrible hallucinations from the morphine and thought I was going to die. Amazingly once out of high dependency my whole mood changed and I started to think about Rayleigh Horticultural Society summer show. My son Anthony and daughter Alison put
in several entries on my behalf, we won in sweet peas and got best fruit exhibit. This was a huge boost to my recovery even my nurses were excited for me.
After I’d been home for a while we got a used mobility scooter and Anthony cut some ply wood sheet so I could drive onto my plots, I can remember planting out spring cabbage leaning over the back of the seat.
Anthony and Alison kept the garden going while I was in hospital and they along with some lady friends (I lost my wife 5 years earlier) harvested the produce and froze the surplus for me. Anthony later said “it’s hard work but It’s been quite therapeutic. That first year I found I had friends I didn’t know
I had. They dug my potato’s, did the winter digging kept the grass cut and improved
access to my greenhouse.
By spring I was getting about on my
prosthetic leg, even managed a bit of digging. We considered raised beds but
I think they would be an obstacle, it was easier for me to roll out metre wide strips of carpet and use the mobility scooter. This is how I tended the runner beans and sweet peas. By 2018 I was almost back to normal and had a good year collecting five trophies at the Rayleigh society annual presentation evening. I also did the Essex DA mini show winning the newcomers class, 2nd in any other veg, beaten by the almost unbeatable Ms. Plumb, also a win for outdoor cucumber, although that was unopposed but it was
a great moral booster to say out of three entries I got two wins and a second at an NVS show. There were clouds on the horizon though, I was diagnosed with prostrate cancer. Initially I was on hormone injections, then medication, this had a disastrous effect on my stump and from March to May could not use my false leg. So back came Norman and brother Ken to dig and I rolled out the carpet this time to plant potato’s, this I did with a long handled bulb planter with my 7year old grandson Barney dropping the
seed. Then we moved over to do another row
The medication was stopped and I underwent eight weeks of radiotherapy which thankfully seems to have done the trick, the radio therapist were wonderful and I was pleased to keep them supplied with strawberries for their kindness
Initially I could only get about in a wheelchair and I thought this was causing shoulder pains. In fact it was due to months of inactivity causing muscle wastage. Although I had been prescribed different exercises even acupuncture and heat treatment, it was only digging that tightened them up.
So I’m not in favour of no dig besides obtaining and carting enough manure would be harder than digging, instead it gets a good stand of phacelia to turn in as green manure. I must add my soil is light and does not need much pressure on the spade.
I am now 82 what you may call an “old dog” so I don’t think I’m up to new tricks.
What I am sure about is that growing and showing vegetables was a huge benefit towards my recovery from a near fatal accident.
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