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Surveying the damage after the first frost of 2012

It’s mid October and the wife wanted me to go to the allotment this morning to get a few veg for a Sunday roast dinner, there are still a good few plants growing down there although the weather is now turning decidedly chilly! A fine row of large parsnips similarly with a row of leeks, I have a good selection of brassicas and chose a nice cabbage from the cage that protects them from the veracious wood pigeons! But to my surprise when walking up the allotment path this morning there had been a fairly good frost! Now, the allotment is protected on all sides by high hedges and I love this as it affords us a great deal of privacy when gardening, you can be pottering away down there in a world of your own in complete peace and solitude and the astonishing bit is the allotment is only yards from an A road and a mile or so from the M1 but you would never know it, however the high hedges do not seem to protect all of the allotment from the cold weather as we have noticed a good area does seem to be a frost pocket.

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Steve Woodward

I am 56 yrs young, and have been married to Joy for over 35 years, We have 2 children and 3 grandchildren, and have an allotment on the Notts/Derbys border. I am RHS trained to level 2 and have also passed a course in herbalism, I have had the allotment for about 20 years, that is mainly for the veg growing, whereas at home I grow fruit and have a love of anything big leaved, exotic-y looking, jungly type plants. I also help run a gardening forum at garden-friends.co.uk.

garden-friends.co.uk/