Grow food, build community, follow the seasons
Forget the calendar for a minute. Garlic roots best when the soil at 10cm is cooling into single figures, not when a seed packet says November. Here is how to take the reading, pick varieties for wet or windswept plots, and split a thermometer order with your neighbours.
A good apple tree on your street is not just a nice view — it is a cutting library waiting for permission and a label. Here is how to collect healthy scionwood, store it properly and turn a winter meet-up into a neighbourhood grafting swap.
A feeder is not just a bird café — it is a winter data stream. Here is how to run a simple, repeatable bird survey on your plot and use the results to think about slugs, aphids, shelter and next year's growing season.
November’s stubborn weeds are not just a tidy-up problem — they are free clues about compaction, drainage, acidity and fertility. Here is how to run a simple weed-and-soil walk, map what you find with others, and choose low-cost permaculture fixes before reaching for the fork or the fertiliser bag.
Fresh horse manure, a fork and a long-stemmed thermometer can give you January salads without a single unit of electricity. Here's how to build a hotbed that warms your plot — and a few neighbours' windowsills too.
A compost hotbed is a winter salad bench with a biological battery underneath. Here is how to build one from fresh manure and straw, read its temperature honestly, and weigh it up against a cold frame.
Every November, UK streets shed a free soil amendment and most of it gets swept away. Here's how to negotiate a neighbourhood leaf-mould cooperative — from council permission and contamination checks to wire cages, fungal science and a fair share of the spoils.
Before you spend a penny on next year's seed catalogues, give the stash a cold-eyed check. A few sheets of kitchen roll, ten seeds per packet and a week of patience will tell you what's worth keeping — and what your plot neighbours can help you replace.
Bare beds over winter are not automatically tidy — they are just exposed. This strip-by-strip plan sows hardy green manures in small, manageable patches from late November to February, so you get cover, nitrogen and better structure without handing spring over to an unstoppable carpet of rye.
Most orchard work-parties end with tidy trees and no new pruners. This one is designed the other way round: a rotating skills swap where neighbours learn to read a tree, make a clean cut and keep the tools alive, while the shared orchard gets its annual tidy. Includes a work-party timetable, an apple-and-pear checklist and a simple way to log what was cut and why.
A solid fence stops the wind and dumps the mess behind it. A porous living windbreak slows it down, filters it, and hands you fruit, habitat and a calmer microclimate. Here is how to read your plot's wind patterns and plant a shelterbelt that earns its keep.
A single square metre by the front path can hold more than a lonely shrub. Here’s how to layer dwarf fruit, nitrogen-fixers, edible ground cover and pollinator plants into a tiny perennial guild — and turn it into a template your street can copy.
Before you move a single raised bed this winter, spend a week counting the journeys your feet already make. A simple step-count and route audit reveals where your plot quietly wastes energy — and how a few shifts to paths, storage and zones can give you back your weekends.
That scruffy strip between pavement and road can become a shared herb patch — if you get the land question right, choose forgiving plants, and build a care rota that does not collapse by February. Here is a practical, neighbourly route into public-space permaculture on your own street.
A single bed tells you almost nothing about the rest of your allotment site. This November, gather a few neighbours, a handful of jam jars and one Saturday to run a site-wide soil census — then turn the results into a shared map for planning beds, paths and water storage in 2027.
A grant can buy the spades, the shed and the seed trays, but it cannot buy the habits that keep a tool library useful. Here is a practical, UK-friendly guide to ownership, insurance, maintenance rotas and borrowing rules that make shared kit last.
Every November, UK pavements fill with a free soil improver that most of us bag up and forget. Here's how to turn street leaves into leaf mould, build a simple bin behind the shed, and organise a neighbourhood leaf drive without tripping over the council.
South-facing is shorthand, not a guarantee. With a compass, a spirit level and a handful of canes, you can map where cold air pools, which beds warm first and why the tidy flat corner may be the worst place for winter greens.
Before you plant that tree or dig another bed, spend one weekend watching the low winter sun. This is a practical, phone-compass-and-notebook guide to mapping light, frost pockets and warm corners on a UK plot — and turning those observations into a planting plan that works in December, not just July.
The allotment at first light is a different place: colder, quieter and far more revealing. This is a case for sunrise gardening, with a practical morning checklist for UK plot holders who want to read the land before the day gets busy.