Being the Online Editor you might think I'm a bit of a techie with no interest in gardening. On the contrary, my background is horticulture and I've been growing veg since I ripped up the garden at home at the age of 14 and put in veg beds.

I now grow the majority of my veg in raised beds in the back garden, although my lovely girlfriend Clare has an allotment - which I sometimes get roped into helping on! The beds are 1.2m (4ft) wide, 4.8m (16ft) long and 20cm (8in) high. We use them for growing a good range of crops, especially salads and things that need more attention than we can give to those on the allotment. In the autumn and winter they’re used for overwintering crops; this year we’ve got perpetual spinach, chard, leeks, purple-sprouting broccoli and spring cabbages – not much I know but we didn’t have much time in the autumn to start a lot of things. The attached image shows my overwintered purple-sprouting broccoli.

Apart from the beds we also grow lots of stuff in pots – tomatoes, peppers, chillies, cucumbers, aubergines, courgettes, potatoes and any other bits and bobs I can’t fit in elsewhere. Most of this lives in the 10 by 8 greenhouse, except the outdoor tomatoes and courgettes. The greenhouse is invaluable for getting things off to a cracking start in spring, ensuring bumper crops in summer and keeping things going until well into the autumn; in 2006 the last of the chillies, peppers and aubergines were cleared away in late November.

I finished treating the beds this weekend - adding compost and raking them level. So it's all stations go for this year's cropping. I'll keep you posted.