My Family and Other Seedlings: A Year on a Dorset Allotment

by Lalage Snow

A few years ago Lally Snow moved to a Dorset village with her husband and three small children, having spent over a decade as a war photographer, foreign correspondent and film maker living in Kabul. She covered the conflict there as well as other wars from Gaza to Eastern Ukraine, and Iraq.In the late winter of 2021-22, Lally decided to rent an allotment, despite having only a rudimentary knowledge of gardening. She was starting from scratch and setting herself the dual challenge of growing an allotment at the same time as growing a family.This is a heart-warming, wry and at times tearful account of Lally's travails as a mother and novice allotment holder, counterpointing horticultural progress with the perils of parenting. Along the way she reflects on the drudgery of English rural domesticity after a professional life chasing war and adventure, the history of the allotment since Saxon times, and the wonderful moment when gardening becomes fun rather than just feeding a family.

309 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 2, 2024

Reviews

[Granny Swithins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gentle read, pleasant enough, but veering a bit too close to mundane at times. I suspect I'd prefer her book on war gardens. Snow details her first year attempting to create an allotment garden while mothering 3 small children (I know how this feels, I've allotmented with 2 very young kids and it was a nightmare, mainly because my plot was next to Bob the Sociopath.) However, in terms of a gardening book, she absolutely doesn't have a clue what she's doing and frequently resorts to buying young plants rather than growing from seed, which renders the entire exercise a wee bit pointless in terms of cost.

At times, somewhat uncharitably, I was questioning why these "media types" think that their lives are so utterly enthralling that they have to write books about everything they do, especially as in places this reads like a daily diary of purely domestic detail. Like I said, an uncharitable thought, but there are plenty of people who've written about edible gardening much more successfully. I'm not entirely convinced that there's enough real content here; given the author's lack of knowledge, the writing needed to be much stronger to be worthwhile, either hysterically funny or beautifully inspiring and descriptive. Instead, the metaphors - constantly comparing raising children to raising seedlings, and comparing motherhood to war (!) - felt somewhat contrived, and the more descriptive aspects tended towards purple prose.

I loved the illustrations at the start of each chapter, which turned out to have been drawn by the author's husband.

[Sharon Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the gentle ramble through the year on an English allotment. Not just the actual trials & tribulations of teaching herself to garden, but with the encumbrance of 3 small children and complete lack of knowledge can easily be understood by all of us who started once.
As well as her experience on the allotment, she through in loads of anecdotes about where veggies originally came from, allotment history from the wars and so much more.
Thoroughly enjoyable.

[Lydia Sparrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book- it tells such a lovely story of the author and her adventures in an allotment and as a mum. The characters are really brought to live with the illustrations. Set across the seasons, it also tells some history of gardening and vegetables - a lot of which was quite fascinating. Would recommend for anyone, esp those who have tried to grown their own veg.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. Gives a lot of information about the history of plants and allotments. As well as the aspect of looking after your children an encouraging an interest in growing vegetables in them. More to the book than I expected.

[Ann Maclennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book which I thought was rather a cosy comforting read and I read immediately after her previous book War Gardens. It is a rather lovely memoir really and I think her three children will be the greatest beneficiaries of this book. I liked the way she interwove bits of allotment history, social history and the provenance of vegetables. I gave it four stars rather than five because in my opinion it’s not as ‘important’ a book as War Gardens which garnered five stars from me!