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Where does the old season end and the new one begin? For allotmenteers it can feel like something of a continuum - these days you can buy excellent plug plants of winter lettuce and oriental greens that will take you right through winter, if you

 fruiting until the first frosts. The plants themselves are also daintier than garden strawberries, so they make a very pretty ground cover.You can still just about get away with sowing alpine strawberry seed this May, since the cold winter weather has put

herbs, lettuce, tomatoes and climbing beans, which I eat every day, just a few paces away. The most convenient way is to grow them in raised beds, which are much easier to look after. I now have a happy mix of winter salads and wallflowers growing

like them in Salad Niçoise with fresh grilled tuna, or to accompany Hungarian goulash or any other robust winter stew. A bowl of steamed Mayan Twilights with a knob of melted butter also goes well with a roast dinner, intensifying the sweetness

, the measurements given here are imperial.i) 1 pint waterii) 6oz sugariii) Pared rind of 2 lemons, plus extra juice from 1 lemon (no rind)iv) 3-4 handfuls blackcurrant leavesv) (1 drop of green colouring, which I think is optional)Heat water and sugar together

toddled and told them exactly that. I wouldn't be turning the pile, I would cover it and leave it till the winter. In return I expected a truce and no more stings.The wasps and I both stuck to our side of the bargain, and - since wasps don't tend to nest

in the year because it will be unbearably bitter: it's the cold weather that actually softens the flavour and makes it palatable."The outer leaves serve as its winter jacket" says Paolo Arrigio of Seeds of Italy, "they act as a blanching mechanism

the distractions of computers and mobile phones, it seems that 11-year-old young ladies still imagine themselves frolicking in a flower garden with a trug across their arm.We've already got a bed of blood-red dahlias, which provide a lot of flowers for the house