Hartley Magazine

All the latest news, hints, tips and advice from our experts

The wonder of willow

Compost fodder, plant support, greenhouse shading, mulching material, soil enricher, winter fuel, garden screen, wildlife haven… there’s no end to the potential of the versatile willow. Our first stormy autumn night didn’t disappoint: warm, lashing rain, high, cottage-shaking winds and two mini power cuts – then a proper time-for-bed blackout. My head torch-illuminated check outdoors […]

Getting ahead before autumn arrives

With it is warm and sunny, sow trays, pots or old growing bags with ‘cut and come again crops’ to harvest through autumn and into winter like Land cress, oriental salads, like pak choi, mizuna and mibuna greens, lettuce, lamb’s lettuce, carrots for seedlings, chicory and radish. You can also use what’s left from earlier […]

Basella, or tropical spinach

  Without a greenhouse this tropical climbing vegetable, Basella, is hardly worth attempting thus it’s little known in the UK though with a plethora of common names indicating worldwide popularity. Vine Spinach, Indian Spinach, Malabar Spinach, Ceylon Spinach, Gambian Spinach, Malabar Nightshade to name but a few. Originally growing wild in much of the East […]

Planting potatoes and sowing biennials

If you’d like to eat new potatoes at Christmas (or earlier), it is time to plant them now, when late season, second early potatoes, stored in temperature-controlled conditions are sent out from late July to early August. They can easily be grown in pots. Stand two or three tubers on a 12.5cm layer of multipurpose […]