Ravensbourne Allotment

Television is often good at demonstrating how brutal nature can be. Whether it’s David Attenborough narrating the killing of a lion cub by hyenas or Bill Oddie showing Hannibal the barn owl eat its siblings on Spring Watch, it’s all there to see and we all know it’s perfectly normal. Survival of the fittest, etc.

The trouble is, away from the telly, I get the heebie jeebies about it. I reckon I could kill a chicken or stick a pig – meat is fine, no problem. But put me in front of a row of Swiss Chard that needs thinning and I dither. Suddenly a spot of weeding somewhere else looks like a great idea.

I’ve grown these little blighters, and now I’ve got to sacrifice about a third of them. I understand perfectly the logic of it but still feel a pang of regret at pulling them out of the ground. Why can’t nature do it? Why can’t the smaller, more useless ones just wither away beneath their stronger siblings?

Completing one row of Chard (on the far right in the picture) I quickly became wary of the murderous zeal with which I polished of the last dozen. It was easy by then, I was numb to the pain. Next I’ll be butchering the rocket. When will the madness stop? I’m already having nigthmares about bindweed attacks…