AN almost miraculous thing has happened. Or, at least, that’s the way it feels.

Apart from the teeniest chickweed seedlings, too small to hoe, our allotment is both weed-free and fully dug over. I can’t tell you how good it feels. Or perhaps I can. In fact, I will.

Rows of beetroot, pak choi and rocket are “storming away”, as the Man-in-Charge likes to put it; the potatoes have recovered from a vicious and unprovoked frost-attack in early May and even the lettuce looks to be coming along nicely and has successfully fought off invasion by slug.

Only the runner beans have played hard to get, but it’s not too late to start again with some new seeds and a bit of encouragement.

In 14 years of allotment ownership this happy state of affairs has never before been accomplished.

We paid a visit to our plot on Bank Holiday Monday, ostensibly to plant some courgettes but mostly to stand and stare. In the past this would have brought on severe depression over the amount of work still to do. But we now get a warm and fuzzy feeling watching our crops grow.

I realise, of course, why in the last couple of years it seems to have been easier to get on top of the weeds. It’s because our physical responsibilities as parents have been lessening. In the early plotting years we had two young children in tow and no-one to look after them while we toiled like serfs. It’s one of the reasons why allotments are packed with retired and middle-aged people.

In theory allotmenting is good for children, and young families are encouraged to take them on, but we never really found that the two went particularly well together. Small feet have a tendency to trample day-old seedlings, particularly when clad in wellies and attached to a small person wielding a heavy watering can.

Our child-rearing years might be coming to an end but we can draw some consolation from the fact that our allotmenting career is taking off. We are, I have come to understand, in our plotting prime. Who knows, in August we might even win a prize in the allotment show.