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flowers work wonders bringing in pollinators like bees, hoverflies and butterflies.Vic has told me to help myself to his sweet peas and I have - very freely! It's far better to keep picking them regularly than let them go to seed as they stop flowering

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

things that don't need regular picking. So this year I'm saying 'no' to courgettes and 'yes' to butternut squashes.I'm planning a couple of beds of onions which always seem to do rather well on my plot, as well as a small bed of shallots. I've had great

've a recipe for a bumper crop.It's the quality of the fruit that's so exceptional. The strawberries are evenly shaped, fat and well rounded, speckled with seeds and rosy with ripeness.I ate loads as I picked them - I couldn't help it they looked so

and sandwiches. But the most spectacular growers have been the courgettes, or are they marrows? I guess it’s been a good 10 days or more since they were last picked, and they’ve loved this warm, wet weather. I groaned out loud when I saw them – well you couldn

the trip in my tiny motor - but I thought it would pick up. And it would have if I'd treated it well; planting it with plenty of organic matter and bone meal, pruning off the dead, diseased and damaged wood, and watering it in the dry summer last year

their roots and the more they concentrate on producing suckers the less they bother about fruit, so I'll plant it within a cube of paving slabs to contain it. Will it take a year to settle in or will I be picking figs this September?

want to grow, especially with my new rule to only grow what doesn't need picking every day. That will narrow down my choices quite considerably.Funnily enough I've been talking tomatoes a lot this week with the plumber, Matt. Turns out that he's a mad