Grow-your-own

There is a tremendous amount of interest in home grown vegetables, especially since the availability of high quality produce in the shops seems to have hit an all time low.  Today we all want to know what we are eating as the effects of the lack of safety in mass production methods causes more and more concern.  We are hoping to create a special section for allotment owners. We have recently taken over an allotment ourselves, it is going to be quite a challenge for us as we have never attempted anything like this before. The allotment is currently waist high with weeds such as thistles and grasses. It is also on top of a hill, in heavy clay soil, and has enough rabbits around to restock Watership Down! As we are new to this type of gardening we have asked the Henry Doubleday Research Association if we may link to their site for information on the best way to produce organic crops. We are delighted that they have kindly given us permission to do so, and we would like to recommend their guide:- ‘Jobs to do this month’. We intend to grow our own salad crops this year. We had a horrible first year with many disasters with some of the vegetables, but learnt a lot of lessons. This year we will be looking to better drainage, far stronger windbreaks and protection plus a lot more time out and about!