Allotment gardening is a year-round activity.  This list of jobs for each month of the year will help you plan your gardening, but seasons do vary from year to year. If it is too cold or too wet to to get a job done in the month when it is listed, try the next month instead.

January 

Plan what you will grow. Make bean trenches, sow sweet peas indoors, complete pruning of apples and pears.

February 

Sow broad beans in a cold frame, chit potatoes, plant Jerusalem artichokes, onions and shallots.

March 

Sow parsnips, broad beans, carrots, spring onions and early peas outdoors. Sow marrows, runner beans, pumpkins and cucumbers indoors. Plant early potatoes.

April  

Sow broccoli, spinach, cabbage, beetroot, lettuce, radish, turnips, leeks and more peas outdoors. Sow courgettes and sweetcorn indoors, Plant out main crop potatoes.

May 

Sow more carrots, put up frames for beans, sow French beans, Swedes, radishes, kohl rabi, and peas, stake broad beans, plant out runner beans, tomatoes and leeks.

June 

Pull first rhubarb, sow more carrots, plant out cabbage, leeks, broccoli, kale, pumpkins, marrows, courgettes, lettuce and celery, prune cherry trees.

July 

Pinch tops out of broad beans, sow radishes, cabbages, lettuce, sow turnips, dig up first potatoes.

August 

Harvest garlic, sow winter lettuces, pick soft fruit, cut canes on finished raspberries, plant new strawberries.

September

Lift onions and shallots, harvest main crop potatoes, cut down Jerusalem artichoke tops, sow green manure crops and broad beans, plant out spring cabbages.

October 

Dig over and mulch/manure beds. Cut back hedges, tie in brambles, cut out old fruited wood on currants and raspberries, plant garlic.

November 

Mend fences, gates, shed and give a coat of paint, winter prune apple and pear trees, make a leaf mulch bin.

December 

Make sure next year's seed list is sent off, finish digging over and tidying the garden.