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herbs, lettuce, tomatoes and climbing beans, which I eat every day, just a few paces away. The most convenient way is to grow them in raised beds, which are much easier to look after. I now have a happy mix of winter salads and wallflowers growing

!One section of my long potato bed, is being left for autumn planting broad beans, which I'll sow at the end of October or the start of November (I always use 'Aquadulce Claudia' and 'The Sutton' at this time of year). Another section is marked out for sweet

plants (such as peas and beans, clover, vetches and bird's foot trefoil) to provides bees with the best quality pollen and give them the greatest start in life. Mow your lawn less often to encourage white clover and birds’ foot trefoil to grow and provide

at the back of my south-facing border, close to the wall where they'll be kept warm at night. As an experiment, one is planted in a bucket of semi-rotted compost, like a portable bean trench. All are staked with tall, strong bamboo canes. (They're only about 2

in place can twist onto flower stalks and bend them, so every one needs removing.Then, like all peas and beans in the veg plot, sweet peas need a continual supply of moisture – not easy in the East Midlands and other areas that have been so dry. That's why

is lost, as none of it will produce a single flower the following summer.Late-flowering clematis are ideal in a border, either trained up a wigwam made of bean sticks or growing through an earlier-flowering shrub, such as weigela or lilac. An annual prune

the dog from The Magic Roundabout) tucking into a blackfly colony on my runner beans. Most recently I met a very special species indeed: an orange ladybird. It was hibernating in a pine tree in my local park. What a find.The orange ladybird is only special

, amaranth, squashes, broad beans and also lupins, which they harvested for their seeds.The terraces proved perfect for the production of food. The stone walls would warm up quickly, creating a warmer microclimate within the terrace and enabling some crops

Growing vegetables from seed can make a limited budget go a long way. Some crops, such as maincrop potatoes and onions are fairly cheap to buy in shops, so growing your own might not save you a lot of money. But runner bean, cherry tomato

beans indoors this year too - I sometimes risk sowing them straight outside, but not in this wintery chill.I really must prise myself away from the greenhouse and get those last bits of digging done, or I'm going to get badly caught out. I have a feeling