Ozlem Kara in her London allotment
Credit: Rii Schroer
I’m champing at the bit to get a start on the growing year, with the romantic notion that the seeds I sow during this lockdown will finally emerge to an easier, freer world.
Like many others, last year’s lockdown intensified my relationship with the garden. For the past 12 years, I’ve travelled constantly in my career as an opera singer, and often found myself, come May, suspended 20ft above a stage or tied to a sacrificial altar, thinking wistfully of my tomato seedlings languishing at home.
In last spring’s cloistered, Covid existence, the vegetable garden took centre stage, and sharing my successes and failures online became a social connection to a like-minded community.