Last Sunday I looked at the Observer Gardening Magazine for inspiration on what might make good content in this blog. Clearly I need to start with a leggy Pixie Lott beautifully photographed upside down on a garden recliner, each finger nail a different colour, without a sod ever soiling those delicate hands. I could copy the image of Miquita Oliver on her “very blowy roof terrace” in her delightful designer dress, whose “plans for her urban rooftop oasis are stuck in the starting blocks”. Both should be interspersed with adverts for new Audis, Jaguars and Fords, a must for any allotment. As an end piece I should include something on sowing winter veg.

Well Lottie is not impressed with all those who jump on the back of her natural beauty in a quest to market themselves. Being in the allotment on a warm August afternoon is as close to being in the Garden of Eden as it comes

The Argus: lottie garden of eden

. There are no snakes, though hopefully there might be a slow worm or two under the plastic sheet, and while when I am with Lottie I have my innocence covered with shorts and T-shirts rather than with designer clothes posing for pictures. Heaven is not far away.

August is a good time for Lottie. Like Momma Cherri’s it’s the time to throw away the list of things to do. Unlike the puritanical purists, I am unrepentant at lettuces going to seed, I remain unapologetic for beetles biting the raspberries, I forget the need to weed, let the runners run,

The Argus: lottie runners

and hope the rain takes the strain of watering. I watch the pumpkins swell in front of my eyes,

The Argus: lottie pumpkin

listen to the bees on the towering Echium Pininana, see the swallows soar in the sky and the herring gulls feast on the flying ants. While smelling the rosemary and the thyme on my fingers, I talk to my neighbours, relaxing on chairs brought from the tip not bought from a tip top shop.

September will be different, but August spells Lottie’s liberation.

May be I will feel like picking some Lord Derby cooking apples with a slight twist of my wrist and succulent blackberries with a slight scratch on my fingers, or let a plum drop into my hand or stop a lettuce bolting

The Argus: lottie lettuce

. . . but maybe I won’t . This is when I like Lottie most, liberated to choose what to do or what not to do, to breathe the warm air, to take the strain, with her lusciousness helping to hide my sins of indulgence, when the weed police pass by. Eat your heart out Pixie Lott, I will be eating my apple and blackberry crumble.