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will take place this week. I'll be planting main crop potato varieties and onion sets. The lighter evenings make such a difference — I'll be able to pop down after work.My main crop bed is already prepared. I dug it over and raked in blood, fish and bone. I

At this time of year, gardeners and plot holders take advantage of any dry, sunny weather to improve the soil and get their beds ready for planting. My neighbours on the allotment have been doing just that - everywhere I look there are freshly

for my maincrop spuds.My only complaint is that the potatoes have scab. I've never had a problem with potato scab before, but this year it's affected my precious Charlottes, particularly at one end of the bed. Potatoes thrive in acid soil, and potato scab

It's been very dry lately, so I've had to water my crops on a daily basis. The poor plants need every drop they can get as my allotment has turned into a dustbowl.Despite the dry conditions, my strawberries have been fantastic this year. I've got

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

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

!I was busy, though, while the snow was lying deep and crisp and even all over the allotment. I spent a couple of happy evenings planning the plot and deciding on my crop rotations for this year. I kept to my New Year resolution and decided to only plant

water and frozen too as it takes a good while for me to eat a season's corn. Paul doesn't like sweet corn - or so he informed me after we grew an enormous bed of it the year before last! This year we only grew half a bed so about 10 plants and that seems

it's good to be getting something back into the lovely, clean beds. Hopefully, with the belated April showers we've been having lately, the seedlings will be up and away at a rate of knots, and young plants will be covering the ground before the weeds

the soil structure. So instead, I'm settling for the simple job of spreading a good few dollops of compost onto the surface of my beds. I'll cover them with polythene to keep the nutrients in, warm the soil and get all those microbes and soil dwellers