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Now the chaos of Christmas is over, I can settle down to some serious shopping. In January and February I like to get all my seed and plant orders underway; it's usually the perfect weather to stay indoors, warm and cosy, contemplating the season to come.I do an awful lot of shop...

We're having a grim January, with rain, rain and more rain and the plot is something of a quagmire. And what did I tell you about my plans to do masses of hard labour up on the plot? You might not be surprised to hear they've come to nought.So this week I'm improving my soil with...

and preparing our beds for planting. This allotment business is not for the faint-hearted.I have a certain routine to preparing my beds for planting, which is dependent on my crop rotation plan. This way I know which beds to add organic matter to and which ones

I love the first harvest of the new season - it's so welcome after the long dark winter. For a while now, I've been harvesting winter veg, such as leeks, kale and cabbage. These stalwarts of the plot have meant we've had fresh veg for soups and winter roasts when there's been not...

wonderful thing this 'circle of life' is - as some things end, others begin to grow. And that's especially true on an allotment. My seedlings sown outdoors are starting to appear, thanks to the recent lovely rain, sunny days and warmer nights. The first

The weather has been remarkable lately. A fortnight ago we had frosts and chilly winds, then suddenly we had sunshine, showers and the odd thunderstorm.The recent sun and rain have been fantastic for the allotment; everything seems to have leapt

during the grading, packing and delivery processes.Allotment strawberries don't have to cope with all this rough and tumble and taste infinitely better, although they probably don't keep as well.We eat all the strawberries we can fresh with cream

I admit that we don't get up to the allotment as often as we should, but does that mean someone else can harvest the strawberries in our absence? I think not. Apart from the rhubarb, and the perennial potatoes that keep appearing, the strawberries

It may have been a lousy summer for growing many crops but the wet weather bodes well for my compost.It's always 'alright' rather than 'wonderful', unlike the stuff I make at work, which is always lovely: friable, richly dark and full of worms, just as the books say it should be....

I've been drying out onions to prepare them for storage. This batch was lifted - from sodden beds - during the non-stop rains of late-July, then spread in a single layer on crates and mushroom boxes in the shed. Ordinarily, I would have left them out on sun-baked earth in the hot...