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I love this weather, it's just the right mix of fresh, dewy mornings and cracking sunny afternoons. The plants seem to enjoy it too, as long as they get watered regularly.On the plot, everything is coming along nicely - the onions and shallots have plenty of young leaves, the co...

putting our hens to good use in the vegetable garden. I now regularly march them out of their run to the plot, where they scrabble around and polish off a lot of grubs, including slugs. It's great for them as they get a change of scenery and lots

Herbs make the perfect partners to vegetables, whether they're eaten raw, roasted, boiled, mashed or fried. Mint is delicious cooked or raw, with root vegetables, in salads or dressings and marinades. Chives, with their mild onion flavour, are very

, never a fan of vegetables, chose Tomato 'Ailsa Craig' as "unbeaten for flavour, perfect for growing in an unheated greenhouse".The list goes on, and with 100 tempting crops my seed and plant order has now grown to such an extent that I'm going to need

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...

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, of course, the ubiquitous Brussels ...

I'm not sure how I feel about super-rich Russians buying up British newspapers or football clubs, but there's one invasion I thoroughly approve of. The end of the cold war has meant far greater cross-fertilisation for gardeners.The Real Seed Catalogue has been listing obscure var...

Raised beds are ideal for vegetable growing - maintenance is easier, as you don't need to dig, and the soil doesn't get walked on and compacted.A robust raised bed can be constructed from interlocking scaffolding boards, which look attractive

My father tells a story of when he was in the army. A particularly pompous officer lifted the lid of a dish of vegetables and snorted "carrots are not an officer's vegetable" before storming off.I mention this in light of a brief discussion I had

It's so hot I'm having to water my vegetable crops up to twice a day at the moment. Everyone on the allotment is desperately trying to keep the plants productive and, more to the point, alive.We're lucky to have taps dotted around the site, which