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Chickweed, Stellaria media, is best thought of as a delicious rather than a pernicious weed. Its young leaves are packed with vitamins, so it makes a healthy addition to salads. However, it can also harbour greenfly and spider mite, so remove it immediately if it appears in your ...

Cleavers grows rapidly during warm weather. The sticky stems are able to scramble around the garden, smothering small, cultivated plants and setting masses of seed. It's usually introduced on the coats of animals, birds' feathers or human clothing

in from surrounding gardens, fields and waste ground.A bushy weed that bears small yellow flowers and fluffy seedheads. Its leaves often have orange-brown pustules of rust fungus in summer and autumn, which can spread to cultivated plants. Pull out young

into the garden through the compost of new plants purchased from nurseries or garden centres. It spreads from neighbouring gardens and the seed is capable of remaining dormant in the soil to germinate when it's turned up to the surface by cultivation.Quick growing

and the roots usually stay where they are and it will regrow from them.Yellow sorrel grows as an annual, but it happily and plentifully regenerates from seed each year, as the seed pods explode and fire seeds all around the garden.The best way to deal

Willowherb, or fireweed, Chamerion angustifolium, is a pretty plant that looks at home in a wild garden, but will take over any domestic garden, spreading by seed and tough underground roots. Left unchecked, it will invade the space of other plants

Monty demonstrates how to sow carrot seed and shares tips on protecting your crop from carrot root fly with a combination of physical barriers, companion planting and later sowings.spring-summerMore advice on growing carrotsAdvice on dealing with carrot root flyGrow carrots in a ...

Carrots can be stored for winter use in a number of ways. On well-drained soils they can be left in the ground, protected from the cold by a thick layer of straw, bracken or soil.Carrots stored in this way can be difficult to harvest, however, so it's better to make an earth clam...

Carrots need space to develop fully so, once germinated, go over your rows of carrots and pick out the weakest-looking vegetable seedlings to leave a 2cm - 4cm space around remaining seedlings. If you're very careful in extracting the seedling from the row, you could try transpla...

surrounding gardens, fields and waste-ground.Clump of leaves growing from a single or multiple point. Leaves and flower stalks ooze a milky substance when snapped. Bright yellow-orange flowers are followed by a fluffy seedhead or dandelion 'clock