My third guest vegetable gardener-Alan Gill

This is the third in my mini series featuring other vegetable gardeners.

Alan Gill- Retired GCHQ Linguist

Over 50 years vegetable gardening experience.

Best bits

Potatoes and runner beans.

Worst bits

"The peas have been a real disaster this year "Said Alan "I think the mice may have eaten them even though I soaked them in parafin before sowing". 

"The carrots have been very terrible, stumpy and short".

"Our strawberries are usually fantastic, we have them in a fruit cage and normally get a bumper crop to make jams etc, but again these have been pretty bad this year, I think it must be down to the weather"

"Also the lettuce, we've thrown most of it away!".

Things you'd do differently next year

"I'd put fleece over the leeks early on as the mites were out in force!".

Alan adds" I love gardening, its very satisfying to harvest your own food. The food is always so much tastier than shop bought vegetables. We freeze a lot of our produce and make soups and jams.

Next time I will be talking to Sandra Lewis