Making the Most of Your Allotment

This book is about growing your own vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers with over 530 practical photographs and illustrations. It is the complete practical guide to growing your own vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers in an allotment, shown in over 530 hands-on photographs and illustrations. It explains how to get started on your allotment, from finding and applying for a site to assessing the conditions, planning the design and planting your first crops. It contains step-by-step instructions for essential techniques, such as testing the soil, weeding, composting, planting, sowing seeds, propagating and fertilizing. It includes down-to-earth advice on growing in the open and under glass, and how to deal with pests and diseases. It features a gardener's calendar of care to help you plan for each season. This highly accessible book shows gardeners how to start their own allotment, from applying for permission and planning the garden through to planting, growing and harvesting vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers. The book explains how to keep your soil healthy, plan what to grow where, and how to choose the best plant varieties and manage your crop rotation.It includes instructions for sowing seeds, propagation, watering, feeding, staking, pruning, harvesting and storage. With its expert information and more than 530 photographs and illustrations, this is an essential volume for anyone interested in looking after home-grown crops and flowers on their own plot of land.