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!”