I dread January; it is often the coldest month of the year, when snow makes its presence felt. If last year, was intent on reminding us that cold winters are not a thing of the past, it worked! (Do double check that you have wrapped your pots in hessian or bubble wrap if snow is […]
I visited the London garden of my friend and fellow writer and blogger Laetitia MakloufĀ last week, the person Iām going to be when I grow up (and get a bit slimmer and buy some properly fabulous shoes). She is big on sweet peas, being the sort of gal who always has a jug of flowers […]
First it was baby veg; tiny immature carrots, embryonic courgettes, baby beets, weeny turnips and other developing fruits and roots, just barely recognisable. Top class chefs and star studded restaurants lightly steamed these kindergarten crops for the delectation of their clientele, while gardeners struggled with concept of harvesting hard grown crops weeks and sometimes months […]
Thereās a hands-on horticultural way to mitigate climate change ā but it will only make a real difference if our gardens arenāt also part of the problem.
A delight with any greenhouse or conservatory is to have the air full of that most delicious perfume Jasmine. Also known as (Sweet) Jessamine. Or rather perfumes for there are dozens of species and varieties, some hardy and many others that really need to be under glass. The hardier ones prefer to ramble and given […]
My greenhouse gets pretty gruesome towards the end of the season. Mine had become quite off-puttingly jungly, filled with collapsed stems, rotten tomatoes and a thriving community of snails. So the other morning I poured myself a big, steaming mug of tea (soon with added sprinkling of compost), rolled up my sleeves and had the […]
What ā its December already? I canāt believe it!Ā It seems that time passes more rapidly every year. Perhaps itās my age ā surely not; itās just that there is so much to do and so little time! November was an extraordinary month, with bouts of unseasonal temperatures, which made it feel like spring. I […]
As someone who would fix an engine and always have a screw left over, removing the end of the greenhouse then fixing it back on again after retaining wall had been built, nearby filled me with trepidation. Hartley Botanic kindly offered to come and remove the back of the greenhouse, then, emboldened by the fact […]
Hartley greenhouse holds back the years One of our greenhouse installers had a surprise when he took a replacement pane out to a customer recently, when he found the Hartley greenhouse he was working on dated back to 1965. The customer, who is now in his 90s, was the original buyer of the Hartley 10 […]
How to Growing Tomatoes httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0u5UzV1MWI If you have any questions please leave a comment below, or alternatively on our YouTube ChannelĀ Below is aĀ Transcript of this video Growing tomatoes is a very profitable thing to do and very easy. I recommend it if you havenāt grown many vegetables before. It all starts off in February […]
Itās been a mellow and mild autumn, and I have been tricked into not quite believing it would ever turn cold. This is a handy state of denial if you own a greenhouse, as lining the walls and doors for winter is truly one of the dullest jobs of the year: hours of painstaking fiddling […]
The magic of seeds never fails to inspire me. You start with a (usually) brown, wizened hard capsule of some sort and within days, weeks, months or years, an almost exact replica of the parent plant reaches maturity and makes its own fruit and seed. Some seeds such as salads, brassicas, peas and beans, germinate […]
