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If I had a shiny new pound for every person who has said to me, “Remember last year? We were all swanning around in shorts in March” I would be well on my way towards buying myself a very handsome dinner. This March, I look out of my window and there are flurries of snow whipping...

Growing your own brings a host of benefits, like better freshness and saving money. One of the most important to me, is being able to choose specific crops that have the very best flavour.I think, what's the point in buying supermarket produce simply sold as 'sweetcorn', 'tomato'...

Home-grown carrots can't be beaten for flavour. Pulled fresh from the soil, they fill the air with scent and provide that satisfying 'crunch' so often lacking in supermarket crops. Carrots are also rich in nutrients, containing high levels of vitamin A, beta-carotene and antioxid...

Doesn't it feel great to get your fingers into the ground? The weather has relented, the soil is warming and I've spent happy days outside sowing seeds directly in the garden. We're about three weeks behind on the season, I reckon, but nature always has a way of catching up. This...

Home-grown cucumbers are delicious, so it's well worth raising your own crop from seed. Cucumber seed needs warmth to germinate, and should be sown indoors during April or May.It's worth checking the seed packets before you buy and looking for varieties that produce all-female fl...

The warm weather has brought on a flurry of activity in gardens everywhere. At last, the longer daylight hours and a bit of full-strength April sunshine has pushed some life into my garden.Buds are fattening up well on many of the shrubs and trees in my garden, and some have burs...

I don’t like waste, so digging dandelions from the lawn last week got me thinking about the value of weeds. Dandelions are hardly the master of disguise, revealing their position in the lawn with brilliant yellow flowers. I used a long-bladed, old knife to loosen the roots of eac...

. Use them to fill gaps in summer borders or grow larger quantities in rows on the allotment or veg plot. Stagger sowings by a few weeks to give you a regular supply of blooms.Many of the best summer blooms are easy-to-grow hardy annuals and, with seeds

or modular trays. Once the risk of frost has passed (usually around the end of May) they will be ready to plant out. Use them to fill gaps in summer borders or grow larger quantities in rows on the allotment or veg plot. And don't forget to stagger sowings