This is going to be a regular blog about my experience of growing food in bags, on a disused part of my housing estate. I am learning as I go along, so keen to share knowledge and experience with other HEN users.

This week I was very excited to see garlic poking up out of one of my bags. I planted the cloves on 30th September, from the biggest bulb I grew last year. But there was some squirrel activity afterwards in the bag, and I thought the cloves had been dislodged, so I was pleasantly surprised to count 8 spears (not technical term) poking up today.

Talking of squirrels -- they are my worst pest. Growing in bags which are about three feet high, sitting on tarmac, I do not have a big problem with snails or slugs like other gardeners. But the bags are oases of soft soil in a hard environment, and the squirrels love to dig holes in them, trashing the plants around in the process. The frustrating thing is they are not even eating my produce, just flattening it, digging it up or burying it in earth as they dig their holes. Last year I put netting over one bag, held down with clothes pegs, to keep birds off: squirrels pulled off the pegs, snapping some of them in two! Anyone have any ideas about deterring squirrels?

The garlic are little spears of hope in an otherwise forlorn scene. My spinach and chard, which never really took off, went limp in the snow and frost, although the spinach is beginning to perk up again. I occasionally manage to harvest some very baby leaves. The kale (cavalo nero) I planted mid August was growing well until it got trashed during the winter. The nearby hole suggested squirrels, although they had also been nibbled, so perhaps it was pigeons. One or two are beginning to grow back.

On the upside, the overwintering onions I planted at the end of September seem to be doing ok, as is the spring cabbage (planted mid August). I covered three with cloches made from 5-litre water bottles with the bottoms cut off. I'm not sure if it was necessary as the one I left bare is ok, and I have now removed them in case they prohibit growth...but if frost returns I will be tempted to put them on again. How hardy are spring cabbages meant to be?

I had success last year with a lot of what I planted (tomatoes, beans, carrots, celeriac etc), but many of the things I have tried to grow over winter have been less successful:

winter lettuce (lattughino) and lamb's lettuce, both planted mid September are tiny, and the Hungarian grazing rye, sown mid October as a green manure, is a few inches tall but not big and bushy as I expected. Perhaps I planted them too late, or perhaps the problem was that I didn't feed the soil after harvesting what I had grown there over the summer?

I am excited about growing new things this year: I am going to try brussels sprouts, calabrese and parsnips, along with some things from last year. I will sow some seeds next month indoors, which means my dining table will be covered in seed trays, and I will have to eat off a tray on my lap for several months! For the first time I will also be planting some seeds I have saved: rocket, parsley and kabocha squash (from one grown at the Tree Nursery). Meanwhile I have to wash off last year's earth that is caked on to my seed trays, pots, gloves, trowel: a big, dirty job.

See also Sara Davies from Growing Communities blog: http://growingtales.wordpress.com/