Don Reeve Profile 

Don Reeve is the perfect advert for growing your own food.

 

A spritely 77 years old and infectiously chirpy, he�s one of those priceless people who DO suffer fools gladly.

 

Even if you�re from a generation of people who don�t know one end of a seed packet from another, let alone the best variety of lettuce to plant in clay soil, he�s more than happy to help. In fact, spend a morning with him and all the mysteries and myths about garden and allotment growing suddenly become clear.

 

 

�It�s much easier than you might think,� he says, �and you can expect a very high success rate, even if you�re a novice. I�ve got to know a lot over the years, but beginners will be surprised how much they can achieve if they put their minds to it. It�s easy.�

 

Don was in the right place at the right time to get the perfect grounding in all things horticultural. His grandparents� generation didn�t so much have green fingers as green blood, and coming from a rural Surrey community where kids were expected to find work in nearby nurseries, gardening was an important part of the curriculum.

 

Then came the war, which focused everybody�s skills still further, and when his father - a rose nurseryman by trade - was called away to do factory work instead, the responsibility for the family plot passed to Don, even though he was still a schoolboy.

 

 

When he moved to Swindon and had his own family, most of the food on their table still came from their own garden. Growing food was a way of life and then a necessity - but it has always been a pleasure.

 

It never lost its appeal. Don still has his grandfather�s hoe, which must be over a hundred years old, and still uses it every day. It started off 10 inches wide and has worn down to eight, and it�s had numerous handles over the years - the current one being a retired broom handle.

 

His fork has survived from his childhood, but his spade is much newer - being a mere 40 years old - and he�s still kicking himself that a pair of secateurs got lost in the front garden recently, necessitating the buying of a new one.

 

He�s almost ashamed to tell you that he splashed out on a new trowel recently. He clearly doesn�t approve of such extravagance.

 

 

 

Don is a stalwart of Swindon�s gardening community and a great ambassador for the allotment movement, although he doesn�t actually own an allotment himself.

 

His garden in Okus is big enough to grow all he and his wife need, plus a bit extra, but he can often be found manning the allotment association�s shop at Pinehurst, while his wife Mary, who takes over when the crops need harvesting and cooking, is the secretary of the society.

 

They have both noted a steady increase in the number of people bitten by the gardening bug, and are pleased that younger people are coming back to the fold too. As Don put it, �It�s a growing industry!�