Wow - it's ages since I lasted posted any news. It's not that I haven't been to the allotment - more that all my other commitments have rather taken over my time, so once I have been to the site, I have no time left to write.

The strawberries are now finished - but what a crop they proved to be - almost 20lbs, most of which we ate fresh, but three pounds of which I turned into six pots of jam. I am not quite sure what to do next but I think I should clear away the straw, tidy up the plants and look out for runners which I can turn into new plantlets for next year. All the books say the plants should be changed every three years, but I have now idea how old the ones I have are, so I shall have to make an executive decision on what to do next. I should hate to jeopardise such a wonderful crop as this year's with the wrong decision.

Since I last wrote, mostly I have weeded, watered and harvested. We are still eating broad beans, spinach, turnips, lettuce, rocket, radishes, beetroot and have now added peas and the first french beans. I have harvested the winter onions, dried and strung them. I have also dug up the shallots which are currently being dried out. We have almost finished the first early potatoes (Accent) which were very tasty, but didn't crop as heavily as I expected. The cabbages, brussels spouts and purple sprouting broccoli and sweet corn look very healthy, as do the leeks and runner beans. In fact, I haven't bought any vegetables from the shops (except salad veg - tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers etc and carrots) for the last three weeks or so.

Finally, this week, it has started to rain, after several very dry weeks and the ground is beginning to get soft enough for some serious weeding to happen. As soon as the rain dries up I shall be out there trying to get on top of the weeding. The bindweed grows apace, as does the marestail. The rest I can deal with, but those two are menaces.