At last!

[narmour]

By the way, what's everyone planting right now? On my list is fennel, chard, kale, garlic, over-wintering onions, winter cabbage (to make sauerkraut with), and thats about it. I'm keen to grow whatever will grow, but especially stuff that is either expensive or unavailable from the tescopoly.

RIght now things that can over winter are getting planted... Spring Hero Cabbage, broad beans, Golden beets, onions and garlic in october(ish), and some purple sprouting broccoli seedlings. Salad veg can still be planted for quick return.

My main job this month is getting all the potatoes out of the ground.. blight hit early and hard so I have a lot of tiny wee spuds in there. Delicious but not great for baked potatoes!! I have never tried sarpo varieties but might have a go next year. Orla are delicious though, very buttery.

The best tip I can give you is not to waste any time trying to grow veg that doesn't normally grow well here. There is a reason that everyone grows broad beans and no one grows cannellini!! I've tried french beans cannellini beans and borlotti beans and they have all been a miserable failure.

[Flo]

Don't forget to ask the other plot holders what normally grows well in the area - that will save you some heartache though it's always worth trying one new crop every season to see what happens.

Don't forget that over the winter you can dig in well rotted manure if you can get hold of it - well rotted stuff not new. If you need to add lime to perk up the soil then don't do that till spring as the two clash and stop each other working.

Salad stuff is always ridiculously expensive in the supermarkets so lettuce, spring onions, salad leaves, radish are always good cash crops. Tomatoes are jolly hard work and probably best done in a greenhouse. You want to be considering garlic now if you are going to grow it as the stuff needs a good cold spell to get it going which is why before winter is the best time. Onions and spuds are fun but cheap enough to consider using the space for more expensive things that you like to eat - as you say fennel is a good crop, so are broad beans and runner beans if you like them. Likewise courgettes, marrows, pattypan squash.

If you are interested in bee keeping for goodness sake get yourself on a proper course run by the bee keeping association and get to know local bee keepers before you even consider it.

I hope you keep a good selection of reference books to hand for winter reading. I'm a fan of the basic D.G. Hessayan Expert books which are cheap, have pictures and do give a good explanation of what can go wrong and why. You should get the up to date ones as the regulations on chemicals have changed drastically over the last few years and a lot of the older recommendations are no longer available to allotment holders. Caroline Foley has done a good allotment hand book and so has the RHS - ask for both as Xmas presents for reading and reference.