Terry Walton, author of The Allotment Almanac (Bantam, £15), has been gardening on the same allotment site in the Rhondda for well over half a century, on his dad's plot and then on his own. Since retiring from his day job he's become the resident gardener on several radio shows.

In gardening, long-experienced amateurs have a particular kind of authority, neither better than nor inferior to that of professionals, born of enthusiasm and trial and error rather than theory, and just as indispensable.

Walton's book follows the familiar format of month-by-month advice, punctuated with anecdotes from the allotments, past and present. So along with directions for starting parsnips off indoors, there's an account of how seniority earns the plot-holders on Terry's site the privilege of gradually moving down the hill. It doesn't claim to be a complete how-to manual for beginners, but gardeners of any level of experience will find it charming and dippable.