How to grow it well
Practical advice for UK growers. No waffle.
14 July · overcast
What the plot needs this week
28Growing vegetables in pots & containers
No garden needed. The best crops for pots, choosing compost and size, and the watering and feeding that turn a patio or balcony into a real harvest.
02Starting from seed
Everything you need to know about sowing seeds indoors — compost, temperature, light, watering, and hardening off.
01Allotment for beginners
Just got a plot? The easiest crops to start with, what to do first, and how to plan your first year.
03Understanding your soil
Clay, sand, or loam? How to identify your soil type, test pH, and improve it for better crops.
04Companion planting guide
What grows well together and what to keep apart. A crop-by-crop chart for 40 UK vegetables.
15Green manures & cover crops
What to sow over winter to protect bare soil, smother weeds and feed the ground for free — the gardener's secret to richer beds next year.
29Companion planting chart (printable)
The whole of companion planting on one page — what to grow together and what to keep apart, crop by crop. Made to be scanned, printed and pinned up on the shed wall.
05Crop rotation
The 4-year rotation system that prevents disease, builds soil, and improves your harvest year after year.
16Sun mapping your garden
How to work out which beds get full sun, part shade or shade — what your garden's aspect means, and which crops to grow where.
06Watering your crops
How much, how often, and when. The practical guide to watering vegetables without wasting water or drowning roots.
12Growing fruit on your allotment
Strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries, rhubarb — plant once, harvest for years. The best fruit for UK allotments.
18Succession sowing
Sow little and often for a steady harvest instead of a glut. The crops worth staggering and a simple rhythm that keeps the kitchen in greens all season.
19Growing brassicas
Cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower and sprouts — one family for a year-round harvest. Firm planting, beating the cabbage white, and keeping clubroot at bay.
20Growing tomatoes: outdoors vs greenhouse
Which to choose and how to grow each well — cordon vs bush, feeding and watering, and how to dodge blight for a heavy, ripe crop.
22Growing winter salad leaves
Cut your own salad in December. The hardy cut-and-come-again leaves to sow in late summer for fresh picking right through the cold — winter lettuce, lamb's lettuce, mizuna and more.
26Growing root vegetables
Carrots, beetroot, parsnips, radishes and turnips — get the soil right (stone-free, no fresh muck), sow direct, beat carrot fly, and store roots that keep for months.
27Growing squash, pumpkins & courgettes
The hungry, sprawling cucurbit family — feeding and watering, the pollination trick that makes or breaks the crop, beating mildew, and curing winter squash to store.
21Growing onions, garlic & leeks
The allium family — sets, cloves and seed. When and how to plant, feeding and pests, and curing a homegrown store that lasts through winter.
09Seed starting kit
The kit you actually need to start seeds at home. Trays, compost, propagators — honest picks, no fluff.
10What you need for your first allotment
The tools that earn their shed space. Spades, forks, gloves, hoes — and what to skip.
11Composting for allotments
Cold bins, hot bins, wormeries, and bokashi — which method suits you, what to buy, and how to make compost your soil will thank you for.
30Watering while you're away
Going on holiday in high summer? Timers and drip lines, wicking tricks for pots, and the neighbour deal that beats every gadget — come home to a patch that barely noticed.
14What to sow in autumn & winter
The season most growers waste. Quick crops to eat before the cold, hardy veg to overwinter for an early spring harvest, and how to protect it all.
17What to sow in summer
June, July and August aren't the end of sowing — they're the start of the autumn and winter plot. Quick crops, last-chance beans, and the winter veg to start now.
31Dealing with the glut
Too many courgettes, a wall of beans, a table of tomatoes. What keeps, what freezes, what to preserve and what to give away — the happiest problem of the growing year, handled.
24Protecting crops from frost
Which crops are hardy, which need cover, and how to choose between fleece, cloches, cold frames and polytunnels. Beat both the winter cold and the late frosts of spring.
13Spring vegetables to plant in the UK
Every crop you can sow this spring — hardy, half-hardy, and tender — with tips on when to start.
23Preparing your plot for winter
Putting the allotment to bed: clearing spent crops, mulching beds the no-dig way, protecting bare soil and storing the harvest. The autumn jobs that pay off all next year.
25Overwintering broad beans & peas
Sow hardy broad beans and peas in autumn for a crop weeks ahead of spring sowings. The best varieties, how to protect them, and the pitfalls to avoid.
The kit we swear by
A handful of tools that earn their place in the shed. Buy through these and a little goes towards ours.
Felco No. 2 secateurs
~£45The last secateurs you will buy. Sharp, repairable, and they make clean cuts that heal fast — worth every penny over a lifetime of pruning.
Buy once, sharpen often.
Niwaki Hori Hori
~£33Half trowel, half knife, all useful. It plants out, weeds, cuts twine and divides clumps — it lives in the back pocket and barely sees the shed.
Get the holster too.
Spear & Jackson border fork
~£25A proper stainless fork at an honest price. Lighter than a full digging fork and ideal for raised beds and lifting roots without slicing them.
Border size suits most plots.
Affiliate links— Some links go to Amazon. If you buy through them, a little goes towards the allotment shed, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend things we'd actually use on our own plot.
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