Jack Marshall at his vegetable garden near Whitchurch.

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.