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blackberries into large colanders.I say all this wistfully, because I still haven't found a good jam-making blackberry that I want to plant on the plot. An allotment friend has kindly given me a rooted cutting of 'Black Butte', but I note from the details

It's time to say goodbye!  This is going to be my last blog for a while because I'm preparing for exams, so it's a case of 'something's got to give'.I came dangerously close to giving up the allotment as well since we have raised beds for vegetables

plums from Italy. The only British plums I've tasted this season are from my neighbour on the allotment.It's all rather depressing really. The majority of consumers are either too busy or too indifferent to write to supermarkets demanding that they stock

down, completely rearranged the layout and changed all the lighting. It will be lovely when it's done. Anyway, all this activity has disturbed my routine, and the allotment is decidedly on the backburner.Having said that, the calm and serene quiet

Three out of the 16 raised beds up at the allotment are now looking a bit neater, thanks to the surplus pallet timber supplied by our neighbours. The beds were certainly due for an overhaul. The lower parts of the previous planks had turned to dark

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

, but that's a lot of potatoes to plant if you only have a small amount of space. Some allotment shops buy in seed potatoes then break up the packs so that you can buy smaller amounts. Similarly, potato fairs like the one held at Garden Organic in Coventry

. 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

from 'Green Globe'.The best cultivar I have ever grown was 'Gros Vert De Laon', which I bought from a market in Normandy. Sadly, I left the plants on my last allotment, because it was too much effort to take everything with me. It was only afterwards

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