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head start too.There's no doubt that early sowing is a risk. Seedlings struggle to grow well when there's so little light and warmth around. But if you're lucky with the weather, it is possible to coax them along, and the reward is much earlier flowers

now. They’re much more likely to germinate and grow successfully now that the soil’s warmer. It would have been a risk planting them a few weeks ago when it was still so cold.Some vegetable seeds can be sown directly outdoors now. I tend to sow only

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

Growing pumpkins is easy and great fun. Pumpkins are rampant growers so they benefit from a large root run, plenty of moisture and regular feeding. For this reason, they are best grown in the open ground, or a large half barrel. When planning your

for eating in salads, some for using in sauces and some for roasting. My aubergines will be so plentiful, I won’t need to buy any again (no matter how many aubergine parmigianas I make). I’ll grow enough garlic to hang in plaits around my kitchen and my

others during a trial.I'm aiming to grow strong garlic plants that develop quickly and mature early. I'll plant the bulbs at a slightly wider spacing than before, to improve air circulation and reduce humidity around the plants. And I'll avoid high

I’m a big fan of raspberries, which are the most reliable of all the soft fruit crops that I grow. My soil is heavy and alkaline, and I’ve found that autumn-fruiting raspberries last much longer in it than summer-fruiting varieties. So now I stick

’s certainly cheaper to grow your own from seed, but you’ll need to be skilled at germinating seeds, not to mention having the space and time. If you buy plug plants in spring, instead, you’ll find the growers have done the hard work – and there are still good

frost-free, but often that's still only just above zero. My little rudbeckias and antirrhinums – both from the Seed Club 'Blooms for Bees' pack – have been so unhappy they simply stopped growing. Worse, the tomato seedlings turned an ominous shade

Growing tomatoes with ring-culture pots involves surrounding the crop with a bottomless ring and adding layers of compost at 10-14 day intervals. This encourages the tomato to root from the stem so it can take up more water and nutrients than