The patch of earth from which Paula had cleared paving slabs was small, only about ten feet square, but it was a start. This would be the first corner of the English cottage garden she planned to create in the concrete yard behind her new home, inspired by one she'd seen on a TV gardening programme the previous week.

Old Mr Wallace next door had lent her tools with his blessing. "Never could work out why that last chap would lay concrete when the soil beneath is so good," he said. "Crying shame to cover it up. And the slap dash way he went about the job; a patch this week and a bit more a couple of months later. What are you going to grow?"

"I thought I'd try vegetables ..."

"You'll have to double dig then, aerate the soil before you plant." Mr Wallace spoke with the authority of a man whose lettuces curled crisply, whose onions were bulbous, whose beans grew ramrod straight.

The blade of the spade sliced cleanly into the ground. When Paula leaned her weight on the handle then pulled it back a compact wedge of earth rose up. She tilted the spade and the clod slid off, cascading into hundreds of smaller pieces as it fell. Mr Wallace had been right; it was good earth. She thrust the spade back in and heaved again. Thrust and heave, thrust and heave, she progressed the width of the patch then turned and worked back the other way. It was heavy work, and hot, but she got a rhythm going and found herself enjoying it.

Mr Wallace had advised to double dig; so when she'd dug it once she started over again, this time standing on the spade to force it deeper down and heaving up bigger mounds of soil. Oh, what crops this ground would yield!

Then the spade struck something. Not a rock; it wasn't hard enough. But it was substantial. She scraped away the soil around the obstruction to uncover what appeared to be an elongated package one end of which was embedded firmly beneath the concrete surround of her vegetable patch. She clambered down to examine it and found a grimy old sheet wound round like ... Oh God ... like a shroud.

Frantically brushing soil back into the hole, Paula scurried back up to the sterile security of the concrete paving. Was this why her predecessor had covered the garden with concrete? The whole garden? "A patch this week and a bit more a couple of months later"? How many bundles were buried beneath the rock hard surface of this yard?

A couple of stiff gins later Paula was phoning a concreting contractor. She'd seen a programme on another TV channel where a concrete yard had been transformed into a Spanish style patio with clay pots full of flowers and ornamental grasses. They'd even put trees in pots.

Who wants vegetables anyway?

Who needs earth in a garden?