Denis: So what cost growing spuds?

Jun 30 2009 By Denis Kilcommons

WHEN I was 15 and the long summer holidays stretched into the far blue yonder, two chums and I went potato picking.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Make some extra money.

Besides, I thought it would be like a Constable painting.

All hay wains and the occasional buxom lass bringing jugs of cider round to the thirsty young toilers with the promise of a roll in the barn. Am I simple or what?

The three of us were picked up by a farmer at an ungodly hour and taken into the countryside. The sun shone, the sky was cloudless, the fields were green and it promised to be an idyllic day. Then we were put to work.

By heck, but picking spuds is a back breaking business. By lunchtime I was what is technically known as knackered. I was unable to straighten up and had to rest by hanging over a fence.

A buxom young lass came to the barn where we had collapsed with jugs of milk but thoughts of a romp anytime in the foreseeable future were a bad joke. At the end of the day I looked as if I had just finished a hard stint ringing the bells at Notre Dame

Potato picking was not for me, I decided. So when I came over all horticultural this year, my priority was to grow vegetables the simple way.

I planted loads of stuff in pots and placed them on a wall in the back garden so I wouldn’t have to bend. Tended them with love and care. And everything died. Carrots, onions, chillies.