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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 to growing autumn varieties such...

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 patch, be sure to allow sufficie...

Following my recent blog Top 10 plants for a dream garden, I’m expanding the wishlist to include fruit and veg. I think it’s good to have a goal, no matter how distant it may seem.I like to think that if I have a decent-sized garden, with room for a greenhouse and a cold frame, I...

frame, and planted out once well rooted and growing strongly.It’s not just garlic that suffers in wet weather. Onions can succumb to a disease called mildew. If you’ve been troubled by this, I recommend growing a new variety for 2013, called 'Santero

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 it would get from the growing bag alo...

Sugar snap peas score top marks for taste and texture. As with so many crops, home-grown sugar snaps are much sweeter and juicier than anything you can buy in a shop. You can grow them in large containers as well as in beds, as long as they're kept well watered. A fairly sheltere...

potager – a walk-through area with beds planted prettily with vegetables instead of flowers.But if you have a conventional veg patch or allotment, with crops grown at traditional wide spacings, try intercropping. The idea of this is to sow or plant quick