Seek advice from fellow gardeners, expert says

Seeing what everyone else is doing in an allotment is an excellent way to pick up tips, writer and TV gardener Helen Yemm wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

Ms Yemm has a plot at Round Oak Allotments and when she got chatting to one of her fellow gardeners he explained how he nailed plastic to the inside of his compost bin, making it much more efficient.

However, she was surprised to see so few of the other tenants at Round Oak take the time to cover their compost bin to keep heat and moisture inside.

“Bits of plastic, scraps of pond liner, carpet or carpet underlay all do the job nicely,” the horticulture lecturer explained.

Earlier this month, Ms Yemm revealed in the same publication that one technique to deal with the currently dry conditions is to shorten the stems of herbaceous plants, known as the ‘Chelsea chop’