Jeremy Corbyn on his allotment with his son Tommy

HE’S had a fairly tumultuous time as Islington North’s MP, from defending his jumper on the BBC, to becoming Labour leader, and running against the party as an independent. But for Jeremy Corbyn, one thing has been a constant over the past 22 years – his allotment.

Much is made of his gardening patch, with allegations once flying that he had used his political muscle to secure the spot. This has been firmly refuted.

Mr Corbyn says it was in fact a surprise when he was told he had reached the top of the waiting list.

He says he had been thinking about it for a while “but it came suddenly and then they called me up and said ‘you’ve got one… come on Sunday and sign up’, so I did. This was not the greatest time for me, because it was at the height of the protests against the Iraq war, but an allotment, you can’t turn it down, you’ve got to take it.”

He says he took his then 10-year-old “pyrotechnic” son along, who would light bonfires while Mr Corbyn began digging. Since then, he counts potatoes, tomatoes, blackberries and Mexican maize among his successful produce.

“It’s hard to get it to do well,” he says of the maize. “It depends on the heat and the sun. But it’s beautiful – it’s red, blue and all kinds of colours.”

His favourite vegetable? “I like a good marrow,” he says. “Other people are not so keen, but I like a marrow. You get a long marrow which is basically a courgette and cut it long ways; take out the seeds to plant again for next year, then fill it with chopped vegetables, onions, make some indentations in it and smother that in olive oil and bake it very slowly.”

Mr Corbyn says respecting allotment holders is an art, as each have their own “philosophy”.

“My philosophy is minimal. I don’t use any weed killer, not much fertiliser. I tend to do it all by composting which is harder work, because you’ve got to do it all yourself. Which means a lot of digging, digging the weeds out,” he says.

But stuck in a bind about how to stop slugs or make your soil less chalky, you can always turn to the online allotment forums for some tips, Mr Corbyn explains.

He adds: “There was one about what to do with rats on the allotment. But one person put up his comment saying ‘I find fast moving lead is the best solution’. So somebody somewhere… is going around his allotment with a shotgun shooting rats. I don’t think he ought to be doing that. It’s a bit extreme.”

The allotment has not always been smooth sailing, and indeed, has sometimes been a site of both mystery and intrigue.

“We had problem, a fox was found dead on my allotment”, he recalls. “Not clear why, because it looked perfectly healthy. It was just lying there dead. I think it might have been poisoned but I hope not.”

The fatality was followed by a visit from the department of agriculture, and a simple burial performed by the MP.

He says: “Somebody put some memorial stones up in memory of the fox. Foxy. They put memorial stones up for foxy, which I thought was all right, but I couldn’t quite see the point of this lasting for too long so I decided to move my compost heap to go over the fox. So the fox’s memorial is the generation of new soil for the future.”

The fox intrusion was later followed by one of a slightly different nature, as Mr Corbyn remembers spotting a Sun photographer with a long-lens camera during the 2017 general election campaign.

“I think everybody should be allowed some space on their own,” he says.

“And The Sun trying to take pictures through a long lens camera of somebody on allotment. I mean, come on. ‘Man on allotment digging with a fork’. Woah, what news!”