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I was pleased with this year's Christmas harvest – much of our Christmas dinner was allotment produce. King Edward potatoes from the garage were roasted, Charlotte new potatoes from store were steamed. Greens took the form of braised leeks and

Allotmenteers fall into two camps, I've decided, after closely observing patterns of behaviour on our site. There are the Harvesters, those who pick a crop in batches, a row of carrots at a time, a few lettuces or a basketful of strawberries

to do on the plot it's tricky to know where to start. At the moment I've got a bit of a routine: I do a quick whizz round, snapping the flower buds off my onions, harvesting courgettes and checking the brassicas for signs of cabbage white butterfly eggs

I really should practice what I preach. What with one thing or another, I haven't harvested my broad beans as regularly as I should have. I blame Paul. It was his job to pick the beans on our last visit to the plot; he obviously harvested

I've grown an absolutely cracking crop of lettuces this year. The sad thing is that Paul and I haven't much felt like eating them due to the somewhat autumnal weather. It's been more the weather for toad-in-the-hole and shepherd's pie than salads and barbecues. It's supposed to ...

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

I know I'm in danger of becoming a bit of a bore, raving on about my winter vegetables - but they have been truly marvellous. So it felt sad to harvest my final leeks this week. What a fine specimen I had left until last - tall, straight and pale

More seed sowing this week. The parsnips should have been in weeks ago I know, along with the beetroot, turnips, swedes and so forth. But it's not the end of the world — my first crops will either be a bit later than everybody else’s or I'll harvest

of the treasured crops of the allotmenteer and vegetable gardener.Potatoes are generally grown from seed potatoes, which are small versions of the potatoes you'll harvest. I grow a few varieties each of first early, second early and maincrop potatoes. First early

After my shame-faced confession of last week, I thought I'd better get up to the plot and see how everything was doing.The leeks were just lovely so I harvested a few for tea. I used a couple of leeks as well as the tops from the others for a leek