"I am in my element, loving every minute of being there, smelling the air and touching the warm soil, listening to birds and bees."

My recent allotment, ‘Lotty,’ is located in Bridport/West Dorset which faces the south. When there is sun, its there on my plot shining all day long. It’s about 150m2 and the quality of my soil is amazing. Really dark, very crumbly and airy.

I enjoy making my own compost. I collect eggshells and coffee grinds from my local cafe, mix them with my peelings and card boxes, grass cuttings on my compost heap.

I also use crushed egg shells mixed with coffee grinds to sprinkle around my growing plants as slug repellent. And it really works!!!

I get really creative mixing colours of plants that invite bumble bees, butterflies and ladybirds into my plot and I watch them and listen them silently. That’s when I am in my element, loving every minute of being there, smelling the air and touching the warm soil, listening to birds and bees.

I have had an allotment for almost 20 years now, changing plots a few times along the way. My previous plot in London was much bigger than the one I have now. I had trees there and my favourite one was a black mulberry. I miss it so much.

I spend a lot of time in my ‘Lotty’ every morning before my day starts and last thing before it gets dark! Sometimes a torch is needed! I look at all my plants and they tell me what they need so I can provide, and I sleep happily at night knowing they are all ok.

My mum and dad were in to growing plants. Growing up in Turkey with how hot it was, we used to move from our city home to the village in the summer. My dad loved planting trees and my mum used to grow vegetables and herbs. I remember my mum harvesting mint leaves, drying them in the sun and me helping her, crunching them up with my tiny hands and putting them into jars. The smell used to be so strong it would make my eyes water.

I built a very beautiful unique greenhouse with the help of my husband at the time. Despite taking no notice of my seedlings and treading on them constantly, he was incredible at construction.I collected many things from skips – from wooden pallets to plant pots. My little daughter used to roll her eyes when I would jump into skips and ask her to grab the things I was passing to her. She was not impressed at the time but now she is 22 and actually finds it very amusing!

I have best success growing sweetcorn, but not so much luck with cauliflowers.

I plant sweetcorn, French beans, pumpkins and squash in the same bed so they can all take care of each other. The beans wrap themselves around the sweetcorn, and the pumpkins and squash keep the soil cool so I don’t’ have to water them as much.

I had chickens once, they gave me many delicious eggs (and attacked my daughter’s toes a lot), but unfortunately they fell victim to a very clever fox one night. The electric fence was still working when I turned up in the morning but somehow the fox had managed to dig a hole and sneak in and out. it was a very sad day for me.

Although I love nature and animals, I absolutely cannot stand slugs, and often find myself swearing out loud when I find them nibbling my vegetables, which is very out of character for me! I once had a snail war with my rival allotment neighbour, as we started throwing our snails over into each other’s plots! I know it’s a little bit cruel but they kind of deserved it!

I love gardening on my own – that’s my happy time, I find it very therapeutic listening to the birds and the sounds of nature. Although sometimes I invite my friends over to have food and drinks together. I also love to share my vegetables with friends and neighbours; aside from making them very happy it also saves me a lot of fridge space when I’ve had a good season!