I’ve been reading Joy Larkcom’s memoirs ‘Just Vegetating’, and they have been reminding me to get out into the greenhouse and keep on sowing, even though summer is at its height now. There can’t be many memoirs that send you hunting through your seed box and scuttling down to the end of the garden, but […]
No greenhouse fruit is sweeter or more luscious than a peach or nectarine plucked sun warmed and fully ripe. Indeed this should be a balloon full of nectar just waiting to burst on you. Now if you live in a warm sunny area you may just be able to win a crop of peaches outdoors […]
It’s time to take cover: after another grey, sodden summer, the future for serious food growers looks a lot brighter under glass or plastic.
Moles are often seen as little more than pests by green-fingered enthusiasts – and there certainly are a wide range of reasons for this. The subterranean creatures burrow lawns and raise mole hills, which can undermine plant roots and inadvertently cause damage or death. However, gardening expert Roger Mercer has argued that mole populations are […]
A greenhouse is not strictly necessary for growing grapes as a few varieties can do quite well outdoors. But by far the tastiest, more luscious and gorgeous varieties do have to be grown under cover and indeed there are few more rewarding crops. Now a large greenhouse used to be needed as grapevines are very […]
I heard someone say recently: ‘I don’t wish to sound like a farmer, but the weather has been dreadful this year’! Whatever your profession, it has more than justified being our favourite topic of conversation. Cold, drought, heat, flooding and incessant rain have all affected our gardens, plants and morale! High rainfall has encouraged masses […]
It might seem an odd topic for this month’s Bean Feast, but unless there’s a problem rain doesn’t actually fall inside a greenhouse. This means that despite the recent deluge, your greenhouse plants (and mine) still need some of the wet stuff to keep them growing and that’s the topical topic for this month’s Bean […]
There’s no need to buy solutions to pest problems that nature can solve for us. The only real problem is how to sell this idea.
In the summer after finishing horticultural college I worked on a new herb garden on a hilltop near Sienna. Sounds gorgeous, eh? But the trouble with a new garden is the trees have not yet grown, and the trouble with Italy in the summer is it is really quite hot. No shade, on a parched […]
When it’s potting and planting time in the greenhouse the very act of labelling every single pot can almost seem to double the workload. But every gardener, well unless they’ve got a memory of a database, needs to keep records of some sort. It’s not about being obsessive; it’s about keeping note of good doers, […]
Removing faded flowers or ‘dead heading’, (see image) is a wonderful job for a late spring day, it extends the flowering season of annuals, hanging basket plants like Pelargonium’s, herbaceous plants – even shrubs, where it’s practical and is vital for sweet peas, which stop flowering if they are allowed to produce seed. Cutting bunches […]
Few crops so require a greenhouse as melons. True seedsmen do sell varieties that may in a very good summer crop outdoors, but most years the results are rather disappointing. Come under cover though and truly amazing melons can be had of a size, sweetness and aroma far exceeding any sold commercially. The main reason […]
