h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We have only a small back garden here, so grabbed at the opportunity of an allotment when a village field was ploughed over for that purpose in 2009. After four years most of the plots are looking well established, beds and borders edged, paths laid, sheds up. The basic structures in place, we can all now put more effort into growing good stuff. We're becoming home grown food snobs, keen to tell the world about our successes, even admitting to the failures -blighted potatoes, stunted carrots, slugged seedlings.

This year has been a bumper year for my soft fruit. More strawberries than one household can eat, we gave them away and made them into jam, wine and lots of ice cream. The raspberry canes have finally proved their worth and I'm still picking the last few in November. The mini-orchard produced apples worth harvesting, even the little cider apple trees fruiting enough for a pint or two of home made cider.

So lots of good eating, lots of colourful flowers and a sense of community with the other plot holders. However, the best part is sitting up there on a summer evening, looking down the valley at the hills and watching the crowds of swifts and swallows swooping around chasing insects and buzzing by inches above my head. The stresses of everyday life seem far away in those moments..

How wonderful - a breath of summer days just as the weather turns really cold here. Thanks for this

I'm looking forward to some of the taste of summer in the dark of winter.
The freezer is full of home grown peas, broad beans, french beans and soft fruit

One of my biggest regrets is moving from a house in a place where I had an allotment. It was hard work, but relaxing at the same time. The old guys down there were great and I miss it still all these years later.

I tried growing stuff in the garden here, but the soil is all wrong and the winter weather just too awful. One day, one day, I'll move somewhere else and start again.

Good luck to you, and I know you'll enjoy eating your own produce far far more than any that you buy.

[Amy P]