VEGETABLES taste so much better when you grow them yourself, say Worcester allotment holders Reg Perkins and Charlie Hodges.

“I can come here on a Sunday morning at 11am, pick some beans and take them home at 12.30pm and they are on the table to eat by 1pm,” says Reg, who has spent the afternoon pottering in his greenhouse at the Pitmaston allotment site in St John’s.

Sixty five-year-old Reg, who is partially sighted and the Pitmaston site rep, works on his allotment six days a week – there is always something to do - and goes fishing on the other day.

He and retired garage owner and motor mechanic Charlie, aged 73, agree there is nothing quite like the first meal of the year from the allotment.

“It is traditional to have new potatoes, broad beans and a bit of lamb. It is a gardener’s meal,” says Reg in anticipation. Although Charlie admits home-grown carrots in season are his favourite.

But they both say that one of the main attractions of having an allotment is the company. “It is very much a little family. I enjoy the company the most. If anyone has some tomato plants left over they will ask if anyone else wants them. We help each other out and the camaraderie is quite good,” says Reg, who tended someone else’s plot, as well as his own, after the holder had a heart attack.

Both Reg and Charlie were introduced to gardening when they were quite young and Reg, who only has a small amount of peripheral vision, has been an allotment holder at Pitmaston for about 25 years.

He relies on his wife Helen to help with the weeding and pruning but has learned some clever tricks to make sure his sight impairment doesn’t affect his enjoyment of growing vegetables and flowers.

Identifying plants can be difficult so Reg puts vegetables like leeks, which grow high, into tall pots. He starts everything off from seed in the greenhouse and only puts them in the ground once they are a few inches high.

“I never plant seeds in the ground. Once the ground is cleared, the seeds grow at the same rate as the weeds. If I sow the seeds in the open ground I cannot tell which ones are weeds and which are the plants I’ve sewn.

“So I start the seeds off in the greenhouse and wait until they are about three inches high before planting them out. Then I know anything that is short is a weed and I can just pull it out.”

Reg, who won the Worcester Allotment Association silver medal in 2012 and the gold medal in 2013, also grows flowers – mainly for Helen in appreciation of all the help and work she does on the allotment. “I tell her what to do and she does a lot of work.”

There is always something to do on the allotments but the months from March to June are the busiest as the growing season gets into full swing.

Charlie is known on the Pitmaston site for his award winning flowers – especially his dahlias. “I love the colours,” he says. Each year Charlie enters a number of local shows including those at Rushwick, Laylocks Garden Centre, Alfrick, Droitwich, Hereford and Broadheath. He has scooped numerous prizes for his flowers and also enters his parsnips, which he grows in long tubes.

But he doesn’t believe in using anything artificial to produce giant vegetables. “Some people use artificial things to make them grow but once it’s been entered in a show I want to eat it so I don’t do that.”

Fellow Pitmaston allotment holder Ian Roberts boasts a five-star shed on his patch, which includes a kitchen and other home comforts, in which he holds an annual wine and cheese party for his neighbours.

All the regular allotment holders have a wealth of experience and skills they are happy to offer newcomers. Their advice to new allotmenteers is to rotate the crops and don’t plant too many of the same thing.

“You have to be careful of planting too many of one thing. You don’t want 46 cabbages to come at once,” says Reg. “You need to think about what crops you can put in once one has finished so the ground is being used. It’s a good idea to buy a good gardening book and just start with a few tools like a spade, fork, hoe and a hand trowel. Keep it simple. ”

Anyone interested in taking on an allotment should visit http://www.worcester.gov.uk/allotments, ring 01905 722233 or e-mail customerservicecentre@worcester.gov.uk.

According to the chairman of Worcester Allotments Forum Chris Thorpe there are currently 25 allotment sites scattered around the city, provided by Worcester City Council, which at the moment comprise:-

• Around 965 plots - some full sized and some half-sized.

• Sites vary considerably in size from just over 100 plots to just 4 plots.

• Currently there are approximately 62 vacant plots, but this regularly changes. There are 65 people on the various site waiting lists. This arises because some sites have no vacancies and people waiting while other sites have vacant plots and nobody waiting. In some cases there are plots in transition between plot holders.

• The forum is encouraging more people to apply for an allotment, so as they become vacant they can be quickly re-let. Waiting times are not too long and in some cases can be quite short, especially on those few sites with an excess of vacancies.

• A full-sized plot costs £58 a year and half-sized plots cost £29

• Plot holders over 65 years old receive a 50 per cent concession from the council.

• All plots are rented under a tenancy agreement between the council and the plot holder.

• Each site has an elected site representative. The site reps make up the Worcester Allotments Forum, which represent the interests of the sites and plot holders to the council.

• The forum, with the support of the city council will shortly be launching a new web site to improve communications between all parties, and will provide enhanced facilities, such as making an on-line application for a plot on the site of your choice.