Coming August 2026
Diary, manual and love letter. An honest, moving, and beautiful book . . . It felt like an honour to read this — Nigel Slater
The Allotment Diaries is a beautiful, lyrical memoir of how Thom Eagle found a kind of secular faith through tending to an allotment. I was so moved by how it shows us the communion and solace growing can offer with the self, with those we love and those we have lost — Amy Key, author of ARRANGEMENTS IN BLUE
An incredibly rich, beautiful and insightful book. In stunning prose that is, at turns, terse, poetic and politically charged, Eagle gives us an earthy philosophy of time through the returning seasons of one small patch of land, an education on plants and their uses (Eagle is a gifted professional cook), meditations on what it is to love (and lose) someone, and much, much more. Writing well about the people we love is very difficult, and with Allotment Diaries Thom Eagle has produced a thrillingly good literary elegy — Rebecca May Johnson, author of SMALL FIRES: AN EPIC IN THE KITCHEN
An honest and intimate portrait of family, and of the relationship between father and son, The Allotment Diaries is a deeply moving account of loss, grief and growing. Set within the shared space of his father’s allotment, Thom Eagle writes with tenderness about familial bonds and the ways in which love is expressed in the absence of words. A disarmingly vulnerable portrayal of unexpected grief in all its shock and muddle, the book is grounded in the small, often invisible acts of care we share, whether digging the earth or preparing a meal. In these quiet, repetitive gestures, The Allotment Diaries reveals how we nourish one another, and how, through tending, we remain connected to ourselves, to each other, and to the earth — Victoria Bennett, author of AN APOTHECARY BY THE SEA
One year in the soil. One last goodbye.
February produces an abundance of leeks; May inspires thoughts of blackberry ketchup. June’s glut of courgettes demands endless recipes; August’s blight strikes the tomatoes. October sees beans soaking in home-made broth, red wine and barley. December’s branches ‘die back’, yet life still stirs under the soil.
The Allotment Diaries follows the year I joined my father on the allotment. It is a year of growing and pickling, musing on wildness and cultivation, documenting his family’s odd yearly rituals, and unknowingly saying a last goodbye. Above all, it is a melodious, nourishing month-by-month portrait of the earth we all have in common.
You can pre-order it via your local bookshop (better) or all of the usual channels linked here.
My father was a keen fan of both folk music and of taping things off the radio, so I’ve also put together a mixtape of songs which were important to him or which are mentioned in the book or which I listened to while writing it (or all three) which you can listen to here.
I’ll hopefully be doing a tour of gardens and allotments and bookshops and pickling cellars to launch the book – follow my IG or my Substack for updates.
Thom Eagle 