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!I know it’s a nuisance but it’s rather lovely too. Everything looks so different in the snow. I’ve been running around with my camera taking all sorts of snowy pictures – at work, at home and up on the allotment too. I managed to get up to the plot

I'm gradually filling up the beds on the allotment. Last week I planted main crop potatoes – a variety called Picasso, which doesn't seem too prone to slugs, and one called Cara, which is cited in catalogues as 'the allotment favourite'. I

.It seems wrong, somehow, to water pots and containers in damp, chilly weather, but they do need the occasional water when conditions are dry. I don't have any pots at the allotment — I'd never be able to keep them watered in the height of summer — but I do

in the pond where I work. There is no sign of birds nesting in the blackthorn at the plot, although it's hard to see through the swathes of blossom covering the tree.Activity at the allotments, however, has been regular and sustained. This week all my

on special occasions, religiously eat my five portions of fruit and veg every day and get super-fit. And the allotment fits in very nicely with the last two of those.Trouble is that in conjunction with the month of January there usually comes a settled

'allotment bodging'.In fact, he almost takes too much pride in it and is liable to get rather carried away in the perfection of projects. He also gets frustrated by Lizzy's and my attitude of "oh, that'll do."Paul is of the school that 'if a job's worth doing

the bushes when we first took on the allotment three years ago so they're only really getting productive now. But the amount of fruit they produced last season took us well and truly by surprise - I still have a freezer drawer full of mixed fruit summer

I'm not a great one for growing flowers on my plot. Maybe I shy away from raising flowering plants on the allotment because I grow so many in my main job (as head gardener at The Bath Priory Hotel). I've grown marigolds as companion plants

and mushy – especially on the allotment. Overnight my nasturtiums, courgettes, squashes and pumpkins perished. Their remains looked messy and certainly didn’t reflect my autumnal efforts at weeding and tidying. Poor Ron next door has lost his rows of cutting

next year. So here are my allotment New Year resolutions for 2009:I must grow crops that don't require regular picking as I don't live close enough to the plot to get there more than a couple of times a week. That's just not enough to harvest runner