Do you ever wonder where you’d be if you’d made a slightly different decision somewhere along the line? Or perhaps if Lady Luck hadn’t been standing by you when you faced a particular situation? Things could’ve turned out quite differently, right?

Friday night saw me and fellow Peppermint, Rachel, head into town for our first shift doing the soup run at Manchester-based charity − The Mustard Tree. Never before has this ‘Sliding Doors’ effect seemed so relevant. Most people we met out on the streets had ended-up there following a sequence of events stemming from a single decision or bit of bad luck. Many were ex-forces, had been made redundant or were retired.

Now, I’m not going to get really deep and reflective on you, but hopefully just raise a tiny bit of awareness for a remarkable charity that’s helping to improve the lives of the homeless and marginalised in Manchester. It was all part of ‘Project Peppermint’ – a programme aimed at encouraging the Peppermints to dedicate time to deserving local causes throughout the year.

On Friday, the task at hand was to prepare the food for the soup run and then go out to a regular meeting point to serve a meal. Although the experience was quite intense, it was unbelievably inspiring to see the warmth that The Mustard Tree’s presence brought to what was otherwise a drizzly October evening.

There are tonnes of ways to get involved with the work that The Mustard Tree does, from donations of food and clothes to mentoring and general fundraising. The rest of the Peppermints are helping out in one way or another over the coming weeks − maybe you could too?

The Peppermints are usually a glamorous posse. These days, however, you’re likely to spot them in mud-caked wellies as they head back from a stint at Peppermint Patch – our very own allotment.

You might think it a little unusual for a PR agency to have an allotment. Here’s how it came about.

Having languished a full four and a half years on an allotment waiting list, and having pretty much given up hope, I got a phone call out of the blue just before Christmas to let me know that – hurrah!!!! – a plot had become available.  The first hurdle was a nerve-wracking interview with Sue, the head honcho, who grilled me on how much time I’d be able to spend weeding every day.  Having assured her that the plot would indeed be tended lovingly, the keys were handed over and the half-plot was mine, complete with – oh double joy! – a greenhouse and shed.

Once the initial euphoria had worn off, the full realisation of the challenge ahead hit me.  I was used to my little raised bed in the privacy of my garden, where no one but my family bore witness to a succession of disastrous crops. Here, on the other hand, was 126.5 sq m of land to be cultivated. And in the full glare of seasoned gardeners of advanced years, notoriously unforgiving of allotment holders who let the side down.

And so Peppermint Patch was made into a communal plot – a place where the team would dig, sow, harvest and drink lots of tea out of a flask together.

For the past few weeks, the allotment fraternity has been greeted with the unexpected sight of an excitable gaggle of PRs descending on the plot on a Thursday afternoon. Swapping computer screens for rakes and spades, we’ve stepped out of the office to while away hours in the fresh air, with the sun on our faces and birdsong in the background.   

It’s not all been a walk in the park. We’ve already incurred a fair bit of flack from our fellow allotment-holders, particularly when Alice forgot her wellies and rocked up in pink ballet pumps, to much scoffing from Alan on the next plot. He then proceeded to berate us for holding the spade incorrectly, not standing properly on the soil, digging in the wrong direction etc etc.

Alan and his fellow flat-capper Dennis threw down the gauntlet with a snigger of “let’s see how long you lot last then”.  Determined to prove our naysayers wrong, we’ve been preparing the ground as if our lives depended on it. The Peppermints are a hardy lot, and not given to doing things by half. There’ll certainly be mistakes and disappointments along the way, and we’re counting on picking up lots of tips from our older and wiser neighbours, but we’re set on making Peppermint Patch a flourishing oasis. Watch this space to see how we get on.

Thank goodness the BBC is ditching its misguided attempt to ‘funk up’ its long-standing institution, Gardeners’ World. The Beeb has pulled off the unenviable double-whammy of alienating its core Gardeners’ World audience whilst simultaneously failing to excite a younger demographic.

OK, so I can’t claim to be amongst the programme’s most long-standing viewers, who understandably feel incensed by the dumbing down of their beloved GW. But I do look back fondly on the days of serious horticultural advice from the silky-voiced Monty Don.

Recent introductions to spark up the format have bombed.  Innovations such as toe-curlingly contrived and deeply unentertaining banter between the presenters have prompted Gardeners’ World’s core fans to abandon the programme in their thousands.

So will the back to roots strategy succeed?  Well I for one am banking on it reinvigorating a much-loved feature of Friday night viewing.

So the Archbishop of Canterbury has been spouting forth on how we should all be cultivating our own crops. Dr Williams’ view is that this would negate the need for importing veg and so combat climate change. It’s certainly a noble idea. But I wonder if the Archbishop – speaking from the comfort of Lambeth Palace – is necessarily acquainted with the practicalities of feeding a family exclusively from your own garden.

This is my third year of being at the coal face of cultivating veg. I’ve now sacrificed most of my garden at the altar of veg growing (I’ve been on a waiting list for an allotment for 3 years and still little sign I’ll ever get one). After months of painstaking sowing, labeling, pricking out, thinning out, feeding, watering, staking and praying, I shall now reveal my successes for 2009:

• Lettuce/salad: fair bit, especially after we ditched the chickens
• Peas: about 30 pods
• Salad potatoes: around 50 bite-sized specimens
• Tomatoes: 20
• Jerusalem artichokes: not one, despite assurances in catalogue of a ‘foolproof’ crop
• Shallots: paltry
• Garlic: ditto
• Broccoli: decimated by blasted slugs
• Baby carrots: hurrah, finally cracked these! About 40
• Alpine strawberries: 2 that survived predators, despite assiduous netting
• Radishes: 8
• Sweetcorn: 1 half-formed mini cob
• Beetroots: a few promising leaves but no sign of an actual beetroot
• Pumpkins: never had a chance against the pesky chickens
• Courgettes: 2, plus 1 that was left by mistake and grew into an impressively-sized, but utterly tasteless, marrow
• Cucumbers: 1. A late entry but my pride and joy. Picked this morning amidst much pomp and ceremony and shared out once we peeled off the evil spikes all over it.

So there you go, Dr Williams – not really enough to feed a family of five for a year is it?

The honeymoon period was encouraging; delighted kids, happy chickens lodging in the cute and functional eglu and, finally, the much anticipated daily appearance of two eggs.  By early this year, the initial glow had given way to despair as we surveyed the poo-filled wreck of our garden.  The hens took to wandering through bushes into our (highly unamused) neighbours’ garden.  Jean-Philippe’s efforts to erect a hen-proof fence resulted in a slipped disc, major back surgery and 3 weeks off work. Despite the chicken wire, they still escaped, now engaging in more audacious forays and crossing the road to explore other gardens. Each escapade was followed by frantic house to house searchs on our part as we feared for their lives.  Touched by 8-year-old Louis’ affection for the birds, we persevered, spending hundreds of pounds on impenetrable fencing around the entire garden.

But no amount of fresh eggs could compensate for the poo, the devastation wreaked on our garden, the poo, the traumatised 3-year-old chased and pecked at, the mites, the poo. In the end, however, it was my veggies that decided it.  I’d tried every single deterrent – including a more alternative approach of placing ‘protective amethyst crystals’ around the garden. Nothing would keep them off my defenseless plants.  I could take no more of watching my beloved seedlings being clawed into oblivion – the shallots dug up prematurely; the shredded salad leaves; the radishes, cucumbers and sweetcorn that the hens dispatched with those monstrous claws.  Enough was enough.

The deal itself was struck by the bouncy castle at the kids’ summer fair.  We offered up our hens and their eglu to a lovely family who already had four chickens and were happy for their ‘girls’ to take over their kitchen and poo under their Aga.  Once agreed, the whole thing was concluded swiftly. Peppa and Minty were promptly transported to their new home that same afternoon and introduced to the incumbent hens – and that was that.

Now we’ve bade farewell to our resident pets, the next challenge is what to replace them with in Louis’ affections.  I’m thinking maybe a Playstation.

As if a global recession were not sufficient cause for anxiety, I’m now faced with another pressing challenge – that of knitting a jumper for our two hens, Peppa and Minty.

You see, eight-year-old Louis spotted a photo of ex-battery hens sporting hand-knitted jumpers this week in The Times.  He immediately begged me to knit a similarly warm and attractive gilet for our own birds. 

Frankly, when we decided to give over half our garden to hens and their mountains of poo, I didn’t expect that my responsibilities would extend to crafting hand-made garments for them. Mind you, neither did I expect to find myself, Jodie Kidd-style, frantically driving round neighbouring streets searching for the hens after they disappeared. Fearing the worst – that the foxes had finally got to them – I almost broke down with relief after discovering them three hours later. There they were, scratching happily around the garden of a very bemused elderly lady who lives across the road.

The funny thing is, a little part of me (just a little mind) actually rejoices at the thought of knitting a hen-jumper. I think it’s the prospect of someone actually wearing something that I’ve knitted – publicly and without protest.  My record of knitted gifts is not a happy one.  The first attempt (since knitting a single bed sock at the age of 12) was a forest green scarf three years ago.  My eldest son Max refused point blank to even try it on.  I then presented it to Louis who welcomed it as the most beautiful gift ever.  When a cold snap descended, I was finally able to proudly offer him the scarf to wear to school. He said: “Oh no Mummy, I couldn’t possibly wear such a precious thing to a busy place like school. I’m going to keep the scarf in a special box to remember you when you’re dead.”

Undeterred, I’ve gone on to knit a number of projects including: a cushion cover that has languished unfinished for 18 months; a rather peculiar pink ‘wallet’ for my daughter; and a further five scarves. The last of these – a burgundy-hued anniversary present for Jean-Philippe – took six weeks of fevered knitting.  The first time he wore it, a ten-year-old local kid approached him and asked pointedly why he was ‘wearing a girl’s scarf’.

So, if anyone has any easy-to-follow instructions for knitting a hen waistcoat, could you please forward them to me?

Actually we had a false alarm two weeks ago. I had to make a quick call to a client from home (always a terrible idea) and was interrupted by ear-splitting screams announcing that the chickens had laid two eggs.   I bolted out the door to find Louis with a huge smile on his face, cradling two of my forlorn little green tomatoes that had dropped off the vine and somehow been transplanted to outside the chicken coup.  He had warned me that the eggs were rather small and a bit odd-looking. But, honestly, tomatoes???

Anyway, amidst much pomp and ceremony, the first bona fide egg was boiled for 4 minutes and carefully shared between five of us.  We all declared it to be the best boiled egg we’d ever tasted.

Still, there were the highs.  Like the surprisingly fecund cucumber plant, the plentiful salad leaves and the treasure trove of potatoes that I unearthed to cheers from the kids.  Last week, I picked the one fully formed squash to be produced by the monstrous plant and roasted it with thyme.   Although I stubbornly polished off every last bit myself, the truth of the matter is that it was absolutely disgusting.  Why? After so much love and organic compost?

And yet, I already find myself drawing up more ambitious plans for next March – maybe jerusalem artichokes this time, maybe a different type of courgette to the bizarre and strangely tasteless yellow fingers that I’ve been proudly stir frying.

It’s time to face facts: I’m a vegetable-growing anorak.  I can pinpoint the exact moment when this realisation dawned on me.  It was at a newsagents in Cornwall, where I was stocking up on light reading to enjoy while sunning myself on the beach (Ha!).   I’d passed quickly over the Heats and Hellos, lingered over Eve and Red – and then I spotted it …Kitchen Garden!!!!  Maybe it was the picture of the windswept woman inhaling worm-ridden compost, or the headline that screamed “Reaping the rewards – time to bring in the harvest!” but I just knew that this was the magazine for me.  And so it was that, huddled behind a straining windbreaker, I read up on the latest compost shredders, commiserated with Lesley’s problem of rusty leeks and marvelled at Des’s impressive squash.

Now where’s that organic seed catalogue…

We’ll have to wait another few weeks for them to start laying the much anticipated eggs, but we can already report unexpected benefits.  Our two boys – who regularly fail to summon the strength to flush the loo after a visit – have surprised us by throwing themselves into collecting chicken poo at every opportunity for depositing in the composter.

Begging them to get out of bed in the morning is also a thing of the past.  They can now be spotted at 7.00am (even in the rain) diligently clearing poo, topping up bowls of food and water and offering the hens ‘treats’, such as remnants of last night’s stir fry.

Alas, the two-year-old – true to character – torments the hens by relentlessly whacking their home.   Peppa beats a hasty retreat to the safety of the coup whenever she spots her approaching. Minty, meanwhile, has fought back by pecking her defensively on the finger.  Definitely a hen with attitude.

We wasted no time in heaping the ‘compost’ – replete with wigglies – all over our veggie patches.  Louis, meanwhile, has earned his first £2 from the sale of produce to his aunt, who grudgingly paid up for a sparse bag of spinach, lettuce, parsley and three carrots which would struggle to earn the label bite-size.  Sadly, the hoped-for radishes and beetroots had resolutely failed to produce anything underground, despite extravagant foliage above ground.

Buoyed by our success, we’ve now ordered installed not one, but two new composters.  Louis is excitedly monitoring the monstrously big pumpkin plant, digging round the garlic when I’m not watching, and impatiently poking the potato plants.   Roll on August!