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I've been harvesting potatoes like a lunatic for the past few weeks. First earlies and second earlies always seem to be ready at the same time.I've been digging up some gloriously rotund first earlies, which have been brilliant for baking, roasting

is the perfect time to start.It's too late to sow onion seed now, but you may find that friends still have some sets left over (my allotment neighbour gave me some surplus red onion sets - 'Red Baron' I think). I also bought white onions ('Marco' F1) from

It suddenly feels like summer is gone! The days are shorter almost overnight and there's that autumnal nip in the air of a morning, which is making me think that my summer harvests are going to start drawing to a close very quickly. There was even a

's still September! We harvested the last of the chillies and pulled these final few pak choi for Sunday lunch and patted Paul on the back, marvelling at the creativity of his construction. Wonder what else we could grow in it!

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

of leaves, only to emerge during the harvest of crops such as winter kale or purple-sprouting broccoli.Hopefully vine weevil larvae and chafer grubs will also be seriously diminished by the cold snap. I'm also crossing my fingers that hungry birds

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

. But it's uncommonly cold at the moment and everything is suffering. The leeks and parsnips are frozen into the ground and are impossible to harvest, but a good frost is thought to sweeten the flavour of parsnips so the wait should be worth it.My Brussels

a bit of blight. I always raise a couple of plants at home, as they're handy for harvesting, and there is less blight about than up on the allotments. I've grown 'Gardener's Delight' for the allotment and 'Marmande' and 'Tumbler' for home. Since Paul

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