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The mailbox at Gardeners' World magazine is brimming with letters and emails from gardeners who have been victims of theft. From these letters alone, it would seem that thefts from gardens and allotments are becoming more widespread, while

After last week's excitement about the ladybird party on the BBC allotment, I was delighted to learn that the UK Ladybird Survey had a stand at this year’s Gardeners' World Live.There’s always a few wildlife charities at the show and each year I

Following my recent blog Top 10 plants for a dream garden, I’m expanding the wishlist to include fruit and veg. I think it’s good to have a goal, no matter how distant it may seem.I like to think that if I have a decent-sized garden, with room for a greenhouse and a cold frame, I...

and hollyhocks, and a lone foxglove! On the allotment, we still have strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and beans.It's all very well having cheery flowers, and being able to pick strawberries and raspberries in November, but I hope this doesn't happen every

. My mini balcony compost heap, however, was perfect.The following year I got my first allotment. I made mistakes there too. I sowed radish seeds in trays to transplant (and got laughed at by my new allotment friends), I planted potatoes in frosty

knows, perhaps salad crops growing in lawns will be next year's big trend at the Chelsea Flower Show. Don't forget you heard it here first.There is a small allotment outside the offices of Gardeners’ World magazine, where there is space for a few of us

discovered cacti at university. It wasn't long before I had a flat full of plants and an allotment of my own to play with.I couldn't live without gardening - it makes me feel whole. If I'm tired, stressed, unhappy, I garden to feel better. I get up early

frilly gardening gloves, or indeed gardening gloves at all. And a bit  of common sense doesn't go amiss - I once bought my dad an electric strimmer for his allotment, but there's no electricity at the site. (He loves it though - he keeps it in his garage

and a pond. Every year a colony of buff-tailed bumblebees nests beneath the neighbours' shed and feeds on my mum's flowers, I'm sure the butterflies do the same. My dad has a nest of common carder bumblebees in his ramshackle allotment compost heap, just

the plant nearly died, so I took it to my allotment, hoping the fresh air and a good dose of sunshine would sort it out. It did, but then the greenhouse it was overwintering in was stolen, leaving it exposed to some hard, Manchester frosts. At least they put