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, that carrots are Paul's favourite vegetable and he's not the greatest veg eater so I really want to encourage him on the carrot front. I guess I'm going to have to re-sow yet again and hope for warmer temperatures and dryer weather. What I really want

am sad to see the back of summer (what summer?!!). But there is something else I am pleased about, in a perverse, time-saving sort of a way.Snails - not the small ones or the medium sized ones, just the large vegetable and ornamental plant

and March.I'm well aware that the more responsible and organised vegetable gardeners will be shaking their heads and tutting - I bet the likes of Adam Pasco and Pippa Greenwood had their garlic tucked up in its beds months ago - but I know I'm not the only

.Thankfully the numerous mini tunnels that adorn the vegetable plot were totally unmoved and the crops within them are perfect.

organic matter added to them. The richness of manured soil causes the roots to fork, becoming terrifically deformed and a nightmare to prepare for the pot. But they are really good for the kids' 'make an animal from a vegetable' competitions.My root beds

and winter roasts when there's been nothing else available.But now the mornings are getting lighter and brighter, the raspberries are starting to leaf up on the plot. I must confess I'm getting a tad bored of my usual selection of vegetables.So you might

and provide a lovely, springy, dry surface to walk on. This means I don't need to don my wellies if I've just nipped up to harvest a few vegetables for lunch.You can't top dress beds with fresh wood chips as they leach nitrogen from the soil during

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

or a bad thing - do they fill the rabbits up so they eat less of my vegetables, or do they merely serve as an appetizer, before the bunnies move on to my prized crops?). Dandelions are also popular with children, who love to pick the flowers and play

instead of the edible stems I love so much. Rhubarb crowns were some of the first crops we planted in our vegetable garden. I scrounged them from my school friend's dad, who still lives at the end of the road where I was brought up. The crowns he gave us