Beautiful day spent at the allotment yesterday, almost felt like spring.

Have made a start on digging over the beds ready to plant out my winter vegetables. It seems a little unnatural to start planting already but I am assured by my books that now is the best time to start with the winter vegetable.

This year, I am on a mission to grow better Brussel Sprout crops. I am sad to say this is a vegetable that my previous two attempts to grow, haven’t been very successful. I could blame the weather or the birds, but looking around other plots I think in my case there’s a lack of technique somewhere! Previously I have direct sowed and, apart from a little fertiliser mixed with some water, I’ve not done much to enrich the soil. My slap-dash approach clearly doesn’t work in the case of Sprouts.

This year I’m going to try a different approach ‘over-kill’. I am bringing to seedlings in individual rich-compost filled pots. I will dig-in plenty of compost to the bed, before planting out – maybe adding a handful of extra plant food. I think another problem is that I don’t put enough space between the plants so that they are competing for nutrients.

I’ll let you know how I get on…