Let’s say you’ve got your greenhouse. Now, let’s figure out the furnishings. Much depends on how you plan to use it. Is this the space where you will start your early vegetables? Is it going to be home to happy houseplants and your tender tropicals in the winter? Is it a light and bright extension […]
This is not about saving electricity, or about embracing solar power to illuminate our lives, but instead it about appreciating and enjoying darkness. Luxuriating in shadows, letting the stars and the moon be the radiance that punctures darkness ever so quietly. Especially in the greenhouse and the garden. I’ve been reading and absorbing a small […]
I used to live in a wonderful village in Oxfordshire, Hook Norton. One of my great friends, gone and sadly missed, was a farmer who was born and bred there. At this time of year David used to say, “spring is just around the corner Val. The trouble is it’s a bl***y long corner.” This […]
A few years ago I moved my dwarf nectarine into the greenhouse, and it is at this moment in the year that I am glad I did. My nectarine is a dwarf variety, and has lived in a pot out of doors for many years, and so I am lucky that it is moveable. It […]
If you are worried about the lack of fresh food in the shops, it’s time to rethink your take on salads and look a bit closer at what is growing in and around your garden and greenhouse. Beat the fresh veg shortage by using some alternative salad ingredients instead. I’ve never been a great fan […]
You need be careful with Eryngium maritinum in your greenhouse, those leathery leaves have tips sharper than holly, thus the common name. Fortunately Sea Holly does not make a large plant, just a foot or so high and across, of exceptionally beautifully hued foliage. The colour is hard to capture in photographs, less green and […]
It’s a good time to repot citrus just before they start into growth. To keep my lemon tree at a manageable size, the old compost is teased gently from the roots, which are then trimmed back by about 1/3 and repotted into peat free John Innes no 2 mixed with 20% horticultural grit for drainage. […]
When I was six years old, living in a small town in Pennsylvania, the local garden club put on an indoor flower show with display gardens created on the gym floor of the YMCA. I was entranced by the artifice—little picket fences surrounded neat plots of flowers, bordered by sod pathways, and festooned with glass […]
A while ago a gardener asked me what my greenhouse’s greatest insect problem was. I answered whitefly, which is a terrible nuisance that can easily get out of control. That conversation got me thinking about the Sisyphean task of trying to eliminate my whitefly infestation by spraying infected plants with Safer’s Insecticidal Soap. The more […]
Support, sustenance, shading, shelter… the humble native hazel is a sustainable, renewable powerhouse. Some plants possess superpowers. Corylus avellana, our native hazel, is one of them. It’s abundant here, growing serendipitously in and around my garden, and in the neighbouring wood. I have never deliberately grown it, and only occasionally relocate a jay-sown shrubling popping up […]
Now that light is starting to increase, it is time to sow some more of the greenhouse crops. I started my chillies in January, simply because they need such a long season, but I am putting a few more in this month too. And it is time to start the aubergines and the sweet peppers. […]
