Digested week: Allotment folly, the trolley problem and gen Z bedtimes
Lucy Mangan
Brief letters
Does Jeremy Corbyn know his potatoes?
Jeremy Corbyn warns rules on council asset sales threaten allotments
July 2025
Brief letters
Is this a dagger which I see before me, King Charles?
Brief letters: Weapons and tools | Nigel Farage | Oracy in schools | Resomation | Voyaging’s not for me
June 2025
Country diary
Country diary: Last spring feels a long time ago in the allotment
Hove, East Sussex: The blackbird parents have food to feed chicks, hoverflies are booming and the peacock butterflies are back. Everything may be precarious, but this is all welcome
April 2025
Brief letters
Ruffling feathers on the allotment
Clay, silty or sandy? Testing your soil type is an essential part of becoming a good gardener
January 2025
Can’t wait for spring to get growing in the garden? Then make sure you know your onions
Planting seeds, rather than bulbs, is cheaper, and there are more varieties to choose from
November 2024
Plot luck: two new allotment sites to be won for growers in England and Wales
Charity promises to buy and set up new not-for-profit parcels of land with peppercorn rents for two communities
August 2024
The first summer I …
Getting an allotment totally changed my summer – and radically altered my relationship with food
Diyora Shadijanova
I’ve relearned the meaning of seasonality – and how fragile the natural systems that sustain us really are
April 2024
The best original photographs from the Observer
Original Observer Photography
Allan Jenkins on gardening
Favourite flowers and moles making merry
Joe Lycett edits Observer New Review
‘The courgettes were so good last year, I got a tattoo of one’: life on a Birmingham allotment
For a taste of Mexico this summer, sow tangy tomatillos this spring
March 2024
Want to grow your own crops? Start by learning from others – in real life or online
Growing food is easier than you think, regardless of how much money, space or time you have
January 2024
Hampshire allotment holders ‘appalled’ over eviction notices
Villagers in King’s Somborne angry over letters from landowner, the diocese of Winchester, sent over festive period
December 2023
Duke of Northumberland loses fight to build on green space in west London
Development plans to pave over allotments in Isleworth rejected on grounds it would harm heritage assets
October 2023
Other lives
Roy Read obituary
Waiting list for allotments in England almost doubles in 12 years
