It's hard work being green

It's a grocery aisle with a view. And, as a buzzard circles overhead and a rabbit appears at a little wooden gate, it's not one that looks anything like the grocery aisle you might find in your average supermarket.

But, sitting on his little bench under a cherry tree, gardener Jack Marshall, aka Jack-the-hat on account of his ubiquitous headwear, cuts the look of a contented and relaxed "produce grower".

Last March, this little plot of farmland in north Shropshire was barren. This year it has been overflowing with enough runner beans, marrows, cauliflowers and sweet peas to feed several families.

Furthermore, there's not the pressure for commercial success and customer loyalty that you might find amongst the aisles of Tesco and Sainsbury's.

"You do it a bit at a time and have a can of beer," says Jack. "And if you run out of beer you put the tools away and go back to 'the office'."

At a time when the Government is looking at encouraging and developing sustainable ways of people growing food, Jack's is a cute solution to the culinary conundrum: sharing other people's land and using your own gardening skills to grow not only your own but other people's as well.

A system called Landshare, developed by cuddly cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in which people with available land share it with people who don't have any, is already proving a big success in Shropshire.

But at Bank Farm, near Whitchurch, the idea has moved on still further. Jack has no garden to speak of. Instead he grows his veg on the land of professional workers and part-time farmers Simon and Susie Clarke.

The agreement is that Jack can take what he wants and the Clarkes can take what they want –­ and furthermore it's all free.

It's an arrangement that could perhaps sow the seeds of a veg patch revolution when the winter thaws at a time when, because they are now so popular, you can't get allotment for love nor money.

Jack, who at the ripe old age of 76 has more certificates for prize-winning veg than you can shake a garden stick at, says it's not the first time he's been given a garden to grow.

"I've been gardening all my life," he says. "Living in the countryside, you do. I was gardening when I was nine years old, helping my father.

"He gave me his garden because I was better at it. At school we had had a garden plot and in those days we used to provide for the school kitchen – not tins like it is today."

He adds: "It's hard work and disappointing at times but if you love it it's not hard work at all."

Jack showed off a few unusual tricks this summer which help to encourage his garden to grow. He sprays sugar on his beans so the bees come along and "set them", and he puts bananas between his tomatoes which give off a gas that encourages the tomatoes to ripen.

Then he shows me his secret potion he uses to feed the soil, a murky mire in a big bucket. It doesn't look much like something you get from the garden section at B&Q.

He won't reveal the ingredients but says: "Wool from sheared sheep and bits from what on the sheep . . . the vegetables love it ­ I've grown 5lb onions on that."

He shows me another secret when it comes to onions. "You got to take their knickers down," he says, peeling the top skin off.

His carrots, when I dropped in to see him a few weeks back, were almost embarrassingly large. As were his leeks, beetroot, cauliflower, sweet peas and cabbage.

Many of them were weird shapes too. Where supermarkets might label weirdo carrots as rejects, Jack embraces the deformed little darlings.

He says: "In the shows there are competitions for things like the weirdest looking carrots. And you can grow them on purpose, it's easy – the hardest thing is to get them to grow straight. One I've got in the shed is shaped like a lady with her legs crossed ­ and it reminds me of my courting days," he adds with a glint in his eye.

He keeps a diary, or log, of what he's put in and when, but it doesn't always go to plan. He puts it largely down to the changing weather this country gets these days.

Jack, who is currently vice-president of Whitchurch Horticultural Society, didn't enter the shows until after his previous wife died ten years or so ago. Until then he'd go along to competitions and criticised the entries, saying he could do better.

"I've been successful ever since," he says. "But I'm not bothered by winning or losing. The important thing is that it's for eating. And it all gets eaten. We have an auction after the show and what we raise goes into a kitty.

"The reason we are doing it (the shows) is to keep it alive because a lot of us are old fogies with window boxes. We've got four youngsters and it's a pleasure to see them in the society.

"We help them and hope that more of them take an interest and maybe start to show." He is encouraging more people to have a go at growing.

"You don't need a big garden, just a small patch, and just have a go. If you've got kids, they love it too." And the taste of home-grown veg is unrivalled, says Jack.

He says: "It's so easy to go to Sainsbury's or Tesco, but it's far better when you've grown it, dug it up and eaten it fresh. It's like those new boiled eggs that are ready shelled and boiled and it's rubbish – go and get one from under the hen and stick it in a pan. And have a proper orange yolk and all." He's not fond either of skimmed milk. Even after a heart attack he won't be changed.

"I have my cholesterol tablets with a big drink of whole milk, blue top," he says.

Jack says the garden would feed three or four families for a year and he has plans to expand next year to include fruit such as raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries and strawberries.

But despite what he reaps, he says he'd come down here for the sheer love and enjoyment of it all. Jack jokes: "It can get you out of the way of the missus and she cannot get me here on the mobile because there's no signal! I come down here and you can see it all growing. And that is special. You can see the runners shoot up in afternoon. And the gladioli have shown a quarter of an inch since this morning.

"It changes all the time."

And then there's the wildlife to watch.

Jack marvels at how there were goldfinches on the fence this morning. Voles come after the seeds and wrens fly in for a better look.

And over at the garden gate the pesky rabbits are back.