Katie in Richmond Park today

Living next to Richmond Park is a joy every day of the year for all the family but when it snows the pleasure the park gives is wonderful. The excitement started when the kids schools closed on Friday and they all got home early.

I had to cancel my trip to Cambridge University where I was going to speak to the MBA students, which hopefully we can reschedule, and took Sam, Katie and their friends off to catch the first of the tobogganing.

A snowy allotment

Sam had surgery the day before to remove the offending fang and less than 24 hours later he was hurling himself down the slopes deliberately engineering face plants by way of entertainment. Thankfully the stitches held!

On Saturday my sister and I did a brisk walk covering a few miles around the park, admiring the deer and marvelling at the peace and quiet.







Today Katie, Hubbie  and I walked all the way around the park, around 6 miles stopping off at the allotment on the way home to shake the snow off my netting which is doing a vital job  keeping the pigeons off my brassicas. I love this weather, it brings out the best in all of us.

Spotting wildlife royalty down at the allotment!

Playing dead, our star the Gold Crested Newt

There was great excitement down at the allotment today as I found a Gold Crested Newt, one of Britain's rarest newts hiding in my old netting, take a look. I found this little beauty when clearing out the pond, a filthy job and tough to do in the cold but important to tackle now before the frogs spawn.

I identified it as an adolescent Gold or Great Crested Newt through my own WBR, distinctive by the orange spotty tum, but I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

It was a tough but rewarding day of clearing up, I lit my bonfire, and dug over the Scruffy Memorial Garden, so named after Joe's hamster Scruffy, who is buried there. Actually Bubbles and Nibbles the rabbits, Squeak the guinea pig and Stella Joe's other hamster are also in the little garden which is a section of the allotment at the back given over to flowers, shrubs and herbs.

Four hours of digging later and doused by the lovely smoky smell I headed home chuffed to have such a rare and wonderful visitor to my own little bit of heaven.

No gooseberry fool

It was a good day on the allotment yesterday as my neighbour Ben had a visit from his niece Amy, an R.H.S. Wisley gardener and all-round good egg, who, after some encouragement from me (sorry Ben), was up for a masterclass in pruning. The timing was perfect as I was there for the annual go at my gooseberry bushes, which suffer from being planted too close together, which is a common allotment problem that can only be remedied by replanting or tight pruning. I had always known that you should cut out the centre of the plant to bring in light, reduce branches you were keeping to half their length and get rid of whippy growth, but what to leave behind was a much more murky area for me, so an expert was a godsend. While in the past I had been taking shoots off at the bottom of the plant where fruit grows and would in the event of growth, drag on the ground, I had not understood a few important facts, so Amy set me straight. Firstly, you should not remove all the growth from the middle of the plant; in fact strong, new branches that have shot up in front of the old wood must be kept, as they are what is needed to replace the old fruiting branches in time. Secondly, for each plant one branch of the really old wood, and only one ideally, should be removed each year. This process will ensure that the bush continues to fruit.

Gooseberries are notoriously tricky plants to prune because at the end of the growing season they present as an unholy, prickly shambles and it's hard, even for a seasoned grower like me, to know where to start. Making the mistake of removing all the new growth from the centre of the plant was where I was going wrong, which accounted for my wonderfully green, packed bushes that actually delivered a disappointingly low yield this year. But after the day's expert pruning, demonstrated by the "after" bush above, I have high hopes for 2013 and once the plants have been mulched with manure next weekend, my goosegogs should be ready to go for a bumper year. This is all thanks to Amy, who said she thought that while we all love the contemplative peace of gardening alone, it was great fun to garden in a gang as tending the land was really a communal activity. I couldn't agree more, it's that very thing that brings the strong sense of community into the magical world of the allotment, and I love it.

October: Celebration merry berry or sad slip into winter?

Katie's birthday berry cake with fruit fresh from the allotment

October is one of those love-them-or-hate them months. I have a friend who enjoys this time of year above all others, which is unusual but autumn is traditionally a time of celebration when we welcome the harvest and celebrate the year's achievements.

And what a year it has been! We had months of warm rain and grey skies that wiped out our tomatoes and much besides, with everything else coming in late. But the upside of the early summer carnage was a late blooming as the sun finally came out and the sweet peas, runner beans and berries came into their own.

I should report that I came first in the blackberry category again this year, thanks to my allotment neighbour who went to the extraordinary kindness of entering them in my absence. I am afraid I can't tell you the variety as I grew them from a cutting from a now retired fellow allotment holder who didn't know their origin. But they are huge, prodigious and taste like a good claret, the only downside being their flesh tearing, surgically sharp thorns.

With berries a plenty and late squash, pumpkins, beetroot, brassicas and spinach, we have a great deal to help us move on from the worst summer in terms of productivity that I have ever known.

In contrast, I have been watching the party conferences and I am disappointed by the obvious fatigue of our political leaders. I know we remain in the teeth of economic hardship – oh don't I know it – but how are we to move on, out and up if there is nothing to show for the year's hard work? A sense of achievement feeds the human soul just as a well-kept larder feeds the stomach, but have we not got anything right? Have hard-pressed public sector workers sacrificed benefits and pay for a better-run service? Have the private sector employees experienced a year of job insecurity for the greater good and have our young people waited for their chance to make their mark with hope now, that a late sun will bring them opportunity? I jolly well hope so and I want to hear it, I want to hear congratulations and celebration of all that people have relinquished to a hard year with plans for the harvest to come, albeit it a late one.

Tonight I made my redcurrent jelly, enough for the winter as long as I can keep the children from spreading it on their roasts by the tablespoons. I write this listening to the satisfying pop as the lids of the jars, one by one, spring up to accomodate the temperature change and create a seal that will keep the jelly fresh all year. For those interested I use the master's formula – Christopher Lloyds – of 500g of sugar to each pint of boiled juice. Regardless of past disappointment, we will be hunkering down for log fires, blackberry jam on toasted teacakes and our family favourite, The Great British Bake Off'(what about last week's gingerbread sculptures!?) and that feeling that all in all, despite everything 2012 was a job well done. My hope is that others can feel that they too have something to celebrate, despite the long wait.

Going beezerk at the allotment

Yesterday there was some excitement at the allotment as bees began to swarm on someone's water butt (there's a joke there somewhere). They continued to swarm there for a few hours while I did battle with what has become a rather sorry excuse for an allotment, until in the early evening they moved to the upper parts of one of our larger sycamore trees.

The allotment has been the primary victim of the turmoil in our lives of recent months. Following two house moves, renovations, work going crazy and a bout of pneumonia added to the wettest June on record and yup, you guessed it, the allotment is a war zone.

The greatest casualties have been my apple trees. Given I came first in last year's show for my apples, the fact that they have all succumbed to decease and excessive moisture is a real shame. I cut them back really hard yesterday before spraying them with anti- fungal treatments and found only two lone apples on trees that last year produced a thousand.

Katie's Pavlova with
allotment strawberries
drizzled with home made
strawberry jam

The horseradish and bindweed have really taken hold and, with help from family including my lovely nephew Tom, I fought them like mad until my back was screaming. Under a carpet of luscious green bindweed we found a pretty healthy strawberry crop, which is remarkable. The rhubarb, on the other hand, has really lost the fight with the horseradish and on removing most of this voracious plant the rhubarb plant was found with only seven leaves. The runners have at least enjoyed the rain but the courgettes have not; they have yet to produce a flower and have already developed problems associated with the damp weather.

It's not going to be a great year for me, but that is the world of the allotment. You win some, you lose some and if you turn your back for a moment you get stung.

If you go down to the woods today, take a high-viz jacket

A snapshot of the kind of planting that wins 

you Best in Show

I always enjoy Chelsea Flower Show but this year was a real treat. Just when you think the standard can't get any higher, Chelsea, unlike any other flower show I go to, raises its game.

A detail of the DMZ Forbidden Garden

Like fashion, there are new themes in gardening and this year it was the formality of topiary juxtaposed with thrilling wilderness that dominated. I loved it: everywhere I looked, there were my kind of gardens, less your fantasies of designer concrete and water features that look like a giant's bathroom and more your meadows, mosses and murmuring brooks. Lovely. We even had a garden designed by Jihae Hwang that gave eloquence to the Korean demilitarised zone (DMZ) and how nature is triumphant even in the face of the destructive power of war. I loved the detail of this military water can draped over a branch.

Japanese gardening at its best

The Yorkshire garden

The garden that attracted everyone's attention and won its designer Cleve West his gob-smacking Best in Show for the second year running was the Brewin Dolphin Garden. It is a beautiful place that gives you classic meadow (pictured at the top of this piece) with enviable hard landscaping.

I wonder who the explorer was?

We then made a bee line for the artisan gardens, which are my favourites, and this year's winner didn't disappoint. Ishihara Kazuyuki's Satoyama Life was a work of art with crafty use of texture and moses rather than flowers that depicted the gardens of the northeast of Japan most hit by the earthquake and Tsunami. As Ishihara said of his garden, it was to symbolise the plight of his people and the hope that their world can and should be restored. He went on to say, "We lost so much beautiful forest, but I am already involved in plans to help replant it and this is my way of saying we will bring back the beautiful views of trees that we once had. I am determined to rebuild Japan as a gardener."

It must have been given a run for top marks by Tracy Foster's Brontës' Yorkshire Garden that was also a total dream of moorland and Cathy's window, wild and yet delicate.

I was also drawn to the tantalising Plant Explorer's Garden by the Scottish Agricultural College, which had one of those romantic buildings only Chelsea seem to summon from who knows where. It had a charming water feature constructed out of a water pipe that grew from the ground and didn't do much more than leak but gave as cheerful a passage of water as any more formal water feature I have ever seen.

Reuse and recycling are becoming ever more widespread themes at Chelsea with a Herbert Smith-sponsored Garden for Water Aid, dedicated to the theme of water management and growing in drought. I loved the vegetables growing in this garden and the red earth, which like everything at Chelsea, had come a very long way.

Having done the artisan gardens, hubbie and I trotted back to the big show gardens, stopping off to buy an antique asparagus knife, which I have already deployed at the allotment. 

Another truly lovely show garden was the BBC's Chris Beardshaw's Bradstone Panache Garden with a focus on azaleas and rhododendrons that brought a fresh look at these quite old fashioned plants. This was a garden of abundance, which really challenged the idea of its temporary nature. It looked like it had been there forever. Another feature that I really liked was its wide use of colour - gone are the acres of similarly coloured gardens with one year being all about purple and the next white. This garden gave us the full spectrum of blowsy colour and it looked stunning, richly deserving a gold medal.

Looking at the acers I decided to incorporate an acer into my new garden though I am sad to report it's a real favourite with the rabbits so I am not sure how long it is for this world.

Joe Swift proving he can do as well as teach

Are those legs?

Moving on we took in Joe Swift's gold winner the Homebase Teenager Cancer Trust Garden, another victory for the Gardener's World team. The use of redwood was lovely and although imposing was expertly softened by the complementary planting. We did wonder what all that wood would look like in a few years time, especially as the next door neighbour at our old house had a similar structure built which had quickly become quite tatty looking, but hey these are fantasies aren't they?

Talking of fantasies there was a real shocker in the garden that lay central to the new fresh themed gardens. These were ones where the designers were told to rip up the rule book and then only one of the category got gold. One that drew everyone's eye and not necessarily for the right reasons was the commissioned garden Glamour Gardens with its psychedelic disco-inspired octopus type thing. Not to my taste but certainly eye-catching. 

As the day drew to a close and I had been able to grill the nice man at the David Austin stand in the Grand Marquee about the right roses for my new space, we treated ourselves to a rocking recliner from a garden shop called Pepe. It was more comfy than it looks and I have the perfect spot for it. The fact that it can be left out all year round is a bonus too. Andrew, the charming chap who sold it to us, told us the funniest story after I commented on the tannoy announcers increasingly shrill inducements to get folk to head for the exits. Apparently on the last night, no one is allowed to start bringing in their vehicles and pick up their stuff until everyone remaining at Chelsea has a high-viz jacket on, something our friend with the microphone becomes hysterical about as the end of each show draws near. Last year, everyone was poised to get going and get out but could not start as one new exhibitor didn't have her jacket on. When remonstrated to by the stewards, the legend has it that the increasingly harassed woman said she didn't have a high-viz jacket, but she did have a lemon cardy in her car that she could pop and get. "Would that do?" Only at Chelsea.

The Daily Telegraph garden designed by Sarah Price

ONLY DAYS TO GO!!! Remember, if you haven't already, please sponsor my 14-year-old son Sam whose epic bike ride to Paris is coming up in aid of Street Child Sierra Leone. Go to the link for details of how to support him. Thank you.

Finally, I get down to the allotment to find the horrors that await

Thirty Streamline runner beans waiting for more rain

It has been a long time since I last went to the allotment, which is disappointing as one of the main reasons we bought our new house was to be close to it.

I bumped the RSA's Chief Executive Matthew Taylor on Wednesday as I attended a roundtable discussion on their 202 Public Service Hub's recent publication, the fascinating Business, society and public services: A social productivity framework, and he asked me how my allotment was; he was no doubt confused by the look of horror on my face. Because instead of contemplating luscious crops, my mind turned to guilt and scenes of neglect. The problem has been the time taken by our move followed by my pneumonia, so it has been weeks since I went, unprecedented in 15 years of keeping an allotment. It was therefore with heavy anticipation that I headed down yesterday, still feeling uncharacteristically weary but looking forward to a good day tending my little patch of heaven.
I picked lovely weather, the sun was shining and many of my fellow allotmenters had their families in tow enjoying the warmth and helping out.

Comedy parsnips

The first thing that hit me was the grass – with the rain that has fallen recently, it had got to over a foot tall on my paths and needed immediate attention. Then there were the pests. Much of what I have in the ground, like my asparagus, had been got at either by the asparagus beetle or slugs and on closer inspection I found hundreds of slugs and snails curled up around the weeds and vegetables like the cavalo nero. I destroy snails and slugs by standing on them. Fellow gardeners have more genteel ways of dealing with the gardener's nemesis, like plopping them in a bucket of water but as they can climb out of water I find the quickest way is to stamp on them or if they are smaller squish them between thumb and forefinger as I go about my business. I took out the cavolo nero saving the best for our rabbits at home and also dug up the last of the parsnips, which were rather large and probably past their best, though I will try to make them into soup today with chicken stock from last night's roast.

Serpentine asparagus

My asparagus shoots are coming out of the ground bent because as they grow incredibly quickly, they are contorting around the damaged side of the spears. They look like mythological serpents rising out of the sea but, I have to report, still taste delicious.



I make it a rule to try to add something when I go so I had the fun job of putting in my runners. This year I have gone for Streamline which is a new variety for me but grows very straight, hence the name, and as I have invested in a 'new' vintage bean cutter, thanks to good old Ebay, I am keen to get slicing with straighter beans and so reducing waste.

Who dun it?

I then weeded and re-netted my broad beans that have once again been well and truly got at by pests. It could be pea weevil but given some of them had been knocked over, more likely to be slug damage. It's time to order the nematodes!

I gave my apple trees a spray as signs of apple aphid and scab are already there and made a mental note to get some codling moth lures and arm my traps.

Finally I earthed up my potatoes, Pink Fir Apple, which are our favourite and still hard to buy unless you shop on the fifth floor of Harvey Nichols.
With things looking a little tidier, though by no means up to scratch, I said goodbye to our scarecrow, Bob, and wandered home in the evening sun to sort my screaming back out with an ibuprofen, washed down with a clinking gin and tonic. I find that most English of sundowners and a hot bath to be the cure for most things that ail a body.


I have a busy week ahead, but like Arnie, I will be back and armed for war. Don't be fooled by gentle breezes and sweet fragrance, gardening is a constant battle and not for the feint hearted.

PS Please sponsor my Sammie who did a 60-mile training cycle yesterday in preparation for his ride to Paris for Street Child Sierra Leone on 2 June. He's only 14 and is constantly monitoring his Just Giving site so go on give him something to cheer at!
Sam Ogden-Newton/Just Giving

Yewtopia: How to plant a yew hedge

This weekend I did something I have wanted to do for a long time: I planted a yew hedge. Yew is known as the king of hedges, but in the past I have been put off planting it because of its slow growth and great price. As an altenative, I have gone for beech, berberis thunbergii, pittosporum or even box.  However, encouraged by the small space at the front of our new house I finally went for yew.

Yew has a great many mystical associations often being linked in folklore to life and death and reputed to be the oldest living thing in the world, namely the Yew at Fortingall in Perthshire, which is said to be at least 5,000 years old. A yew hedge is a hedge forever, which seems a fitting tribute to a new house. Yew is so dense that you can cut it into any shape you like and train it to form a narrow yet packed hedge, which is a plus for a small shared boundary. Whatever it does, it will do it slowly but as I explained to Katie who was helping me, gardeners think about the future and they are by their nature patient. Instant gardening isn't really gardening at all and as we all know if its worthwhile, it is worth waiting for.

The ancient remains of the yew at Fortingall

Yew will put up with shade and some neglect, but it does demand good drainage, which worried me as the front falls away from the house creating a trench or gully of the front bed and, in keeping with the rest of London, our house has feet of clay. With this in mind I dug a trench 60cm deep to break up the clay and removed all the large stones and, as it turned out, lumps of concrete and brick. I then mixed up some sieved top soil, John Innes No 3 and good old manure. Gardening is all about the soil and getting that right is all important.

Having dug my trench I lined it with 15cms of my root inducing top soil, filled each spot that was to receive a tree with a good handful of fish, blood and bone and dropped in my young trees. I measured the spaces in between which was to be exactly 20 inches, which was a little close but I think they will manage and filled the spaces in between the trees with the top soil mixture, making sure the level of the soil was no higher or lower than the level of the pot they had come from. With each plant I got down and checked with my hands that the rootball was tight in the soil with no big gaps before I heeled in the soil around them.

Katie and I then watered each plant in and stood back to admire our handy work. Lovely.

While I was doing this, many of my new neighbours came to introduce themselves which was fun. One said my hedges looked very Christmassy and another suggested we rename the house Yewtopia. It was nice to meet so many of my neighbours and it occured to me that working in a front garden is a good way to suss out a new manor, even if it is a little hard on the old back.

Beating the winter blues

It might be cold out there, but there is still fun to be had on the allotment. Every year I put in a perennial; this year it's blueberries. I chose Blue Pearl, recommended to me by fellow plot holders for its heavy cropping and, as our Katie is a blueberry fiend, it seemed like a plan. I dug big holes and put ericaceous soil 12 inches below the root ball so it should be a few years before they hit soil with lime in it. Even though they are hardy, the big freeze on its way means I've fleeced them until they settle in and the worst of the weather has passed. Now all we need is a little sun, some timely rain and blueberry pie it is.

Shed love

Isn't it wonderful?

This weekend I have mostly been admiring my new shed. Over the years I have reused all sorts of containers to store my tools, everything from a discarded Westminster City grit bin to a lean-to we made from scrap timber to a hand-me down, very shed-like shed, donated by a relative. These strategies were necessary because about a week after I got my site, way back in 1996, the old shed that sat on its neat, municipal concrete footing blew down. I then muddled through believing that the true spirit of allotmenting is to make do and mend.

But, no more. Today I present to you, drum roll please... shed supreme. I am not ashamed to say that once it was up I actually sat, with my kids inside it, closed the door and contemplated my good fortune. This, I concluded, was living! Shelves will be next with especially placed long screws to hold up my tools which are very precious to me and include my grandmother's rake and father's spade. Legacies from great and gone gardeners.

Once I could tear my eyes away from my own Sydney Opera House, I tended some of the crops I have going strong, including the cavolo nero. I then broke a real sweat turning one of my compost bins over, removing the bottom layer, which had produced some fantastic organic fibre for the herb bed. All  very satisfying.

To make my joy complete, I celebrated by lighting the massive pyre of this autumn's cuttings and past-their-sell-by date plants that I had been building up over the last couple of months.

Normally burning the amount of  green waste I produce from pruning the summer growth takes a few hours to get through. But to my surprise, and I have to say momentary horror, the whole lot went up in a couple of minutes! This was probably due to the winds that do dry out cuttings very quickly if they are left where the wind can literally blow through them. My tribute to the God of sheds was a spectacular sight, making us all smell of autumn, smoky and clean.

The metamorphic heat created wonderful ash that will feed the bed I used for the bonfire and my soft fruits, that, ooo, love a bit of ash.

As I left tonight I dug in the lingering embers, felt their very welcome heat on my face and thought about the big question: What is life if it isn't an eternal cycle of life, death and transformation punctuated by moments of pure pleasure, like a new, sturdy shed? Beetroot brownie anyone?

All in apple pie order

I had an amazing day on the allotment yesterday with my nephew Tom Woodford. He did some serious heavy lifting of wood chip mulch and manure and I pruned for Britain. Starting at the front, I cleared back the asparagus, autumn-fruiting raspberries, gooseberries, Jerusalem artichokes, blackberries and grapevine.

Tom mulched the paths with the free wood chip that the council leaves at the site gates and also helped me bring 28 bags of manure down to No 31 to feed and protect the soil.

Tom, glad its's the last bag!

Tom is a keen rugby player and used to play for his university team in Newcastle but he still found that gardening is more than a little physically challenging. Watching him, I was hit by those thoughts that all adults feel when looking at children who have grown up around them. How do they get so big? Gardening, like family, is all about lifecycle and in preparing for winter we are making way for the next generation, the life yet to come.

It was a real treat to have a bit of muscle and I made the most of it. At this time of year I really enjoy putting my allotment to bed, but it is a brutal job involving very heavy lifting. I now have an 8ft tall pile of cut vegetation that will need burning when it has dried out a little and some serious digging to do.

So, thanks to Tom, I have made a great start towards my annual pre-Christmas goal of having the whole site tidy, fed and dormant for the big freeze. I have long since modified my ambitions for winter harvesting as the slugs, wind, birds and snow usually deplete anything I have tried to grow in the past, other than horseradish, Jerusalem artichokes, cavello nero and beetroot. This year I haven't even put in broad beans as the snow really knocked back last year's autumn-planted crop, which was greatly outperformed by those that went in later in the following spring. Gardening is all about learning lessons, and I have learnt mine, which is: don't fight the weather.

Yesterday was also very special because of the heat, we actually caught a little sun and for near December that is extraordinary! And as for my apples, despite taking baskets to SEL and giving bags away, we are still nowhere near working our way through them. So today I will be making an apple pie which, if it is any good I will post a picture of.

Dealing with stress while watching autumn's setting sun

Autumn treasure indeed

It's supposed to snow later on this week but this weekend, the weather could not have been more perfect, in an eerie sort of way. In stressful times we all need to find our oasis and for me it's the allotment.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away

Dolgo crab apples, rubies on a tree

I have been poorly this week, battling a nasty chest infection, so as part of my convalescence I decided to make some more crab apple jelly.

I heard it on the grapevine

Stripped of my strimmer, I ask, why bother?

Partially fanged but still fabulous, my first
 parsnips this year

Someone said to me recently that they went to my blog because I write about social enterprise and yet many of my contributions seemed to be about an allotment.

She said, "How can anyone write so much about gardening?" Clearly, she was not impressed. I do wonder what folk make of my rather eclectic mix of social commentary, horticulture and family life, but in writing about my passions, there does appear to be three themes. I hope they don't jar too much and the almost weekly gardening slot at the moment isn't too dull. My hope is based on the fact that I get as many comments about the gardening as other posts, so I know at least a few of you share my interest in the sod.

The seed bed in full production

Having dinner last night with a dear friend, she asked why I blog. I couldn't really answer except to say that when writing about what fascinates me, I do it to organise my thoughts, which I really enjoy, as much as a desire to inform the reader. Clearly, you may say, and I have had comments posted to the effect that my pieces sometimes miss the desired mark. But 28,000 unique visits to the blog this year proves something I suppose.

All of this is by way of introducing another gardening post. I must report that there have been a spate of thefts at the allotment and I have been relieved of my strimmer. It was a trusty friend, which, like its owner, needed careful handling. Good luck getting it started thief: without the usual three nods to the east and prayer to the gardening god, you haven't got a hope. Fellow tweeters have shared their allotment losses with me and theft on allotment sites does appear to be widespread.

The problem for me is not just the lost strimmer or the empty beer bottles left in our picnic area, it is of course, the violation. The allotment is my haven, where I go to feel good and at one with the world. For therapy, spiritual rejuvenation and veg. My children often go there alone either to fish or pick produce for supper, and I cannot bear the idea that on the same land, in the same space, greed and contempt sometimes stalk. So even though I had a great haul again yesterday and put another 3 kilos of raspberries and blackberries in the freezer, I worked on the site imagining someone looking at the fruits of my labour and finding it twee, smug and irritating. Or maybe I'm just over-reacting. It is after all only a bloody strimmer.

So a couple of things to tell you. The first is that I observed the Cavolo Nero I have under netting to protect it from the birds is being eaten by something, in dramatic contrast to the rest of the Cavolo Nero that has not been netted, see above, which is looking marvellous and well on course to provide us with some winter greens. I love this Italian brassica, which is as versatile as any cabbage but a stunning blue/black/green colour with a strong, distinctive flavour. Like all brassicas, it is hardy and one of the few things I managed to crop right the way through last winter.

I also pulled my first parsnips of the year, some of which are 'fanged' – a technical term for shapes like fat legs doing one half of a star jump, but still they looked glorious to me. Also, I started picking my pears, which we had with stilton last night and, like my apples, they are absolutely delicious.

So all in all a productive day and one that demands I move on. I would buy a new strimmer today, but that would break my, never-shop-on-a-Sunday rule, which has remained unbroken for 15 years. So the grass will have to wait until next weekend. That and today is really the day to remember 9/11 and a fellow allotmenter who unimaginably lost her daughter that day. All thoughts must go to her and her family, and therefore I shall worry less about unwanted two-legged visitors on plot 31.

How do you like them apples?

A real haul



What 3 kg raspberries looks like

 It's that time of year when cropping at the allotment has to be done with the aid of a wheelbarrow because 20 lbs of fruit and veg takes some carrying.

It's show time!

Katie hangs on to them as the wind picks up

Today was the allotment show, our largest annual gathering of the 280 sites from in and around Richmond and East Sheen and a chance for the general public to take a look at the fruits of our labour.

The field of dreams and allotment fishing: who knew?

Sunny side up

Sunflowers are like the human spirit: they thrive with the warmth of the sun's benevolence and they follow the light with steadfast optimism.

Heaven scent

Bloomin' loverly

There can be no lovelier fragrance than that of the sweet pea. For most gardeners, growing sweet peas is in their top five if not top three list. Although they are not the easiest things to grow, few of us could imagine a summer without their delicious appearance, and June, July and August, possibly even May, depending on the weather, are months where bedrooms like mine are heady with the scent of the sweet pea.

Just bee...cause

Today I had the wonderfully civilised job of walking over to near neighbours to buy some of their delicious home-produced honey, which Simon and Gill Sylvester produce as London Honey. Joe, our eldest, has really bad hayfever, in fact he has been hospitalised with it twice. I looked for ways to manage his very violent reaction when I was told by a Chinese doctor to try and find honey produced as close to where I live as possible. The thinking is that it contains the pollen of the plants that are stimulating the allergic reaction and a dose a day, like immunisation, helps to build up resistence.

Bizzy bees on my flowering marjoram

So I asked around and was delighted to find a honey producer right on my doorstep and after a year of honey every day (thankfully Joe loves the stuff) I have to report he has had his best year ever with no big reactions.

Having bagged the good gold stuff, I headed off to the allotment where my recent purchase influenced my gardening. One of my jobs had been to cut down the herbs as they are flowering and if you strim them now, they will come again before the end of the growing season. But seeing the flowers were covered in bees and butterflies, I decided to let them get on with the important buzziness of collecting pollen. As we have all been hearing lately, bees are in diminishing supply and we all need to do what we can to keep their numbers up. If there are no bees, there will be no pollinated flowers and, of course, no honey.

At the allotment I found the beetroot I was growing to majestic proportions for our show on the 20th had been eaten by the same rodents that had attacked Alan Jenkins's beetroot as reported in the Guardian allotment blog on 4 July.

Four hours of hard graft later, I had to say farewell to the allotment for the next two weeks. It's difficult for gardeners to leave their posts – some people get their legs waxed or shop for holiday clothes just before going away, but I garden until the last minute and leave knowing that no matter how much effort I put in before my departure, it will be a shambles on my return. Every time. Still that's life. I have organised a team of allotment waterers, bunny minders and house sitters so even though the weeds and slugs will have a fine old time in my absence, things should at least survive our two weeks of Cornish sea, sand and, if we are unusually lucky, sun. Can't wait. Mine's a pasty.