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.But the downside of the cold weather is that my compost heap has stopped decomposing. The pile of fruit and vegetable peelings and garden waste has shown little sign of decay in the last few weeks. The banana skins turn black very quickly, and the local badgers

Like many gardeners at this time of year, I can normally be found in the garden with my head in a bag of compost. I'm not hiding from the taxman, or even two noisy kids - I'm just trying to get some seeds sown. Sowing seeds is a task that should

I've been spring cleaning. The greenhouse, of course, not the house. Somehow the lure of the compost and seed trays was much greater than that of the vacuum cleaner and duster.Our heavy clay soil has been sodden and unworkable, so the greenhouse

out containers ready to refill with fresh compost for autumn and winter pot displays, one of my children exclaimed "look what I've found ... one of those leaf bee things!" Sure enough, there in amongst the compost were several beautiful cylinders, each

besides. They're not pre-packaged salad mixes from the supermarket, but home-grown in my greenhouse. And if you don't have space for a greenhouse don't worry - a windowsill is perfect. All you need is some compost. I reuse seed-sowing compost from

in a part of the world so well adorned with wildlife and wildflowers. But only last year was I on my hands and knees, weeding out violets from paving cracks, stone walls and even the compost of potted plants. I wonder how many perfectly good plants we

reducing the wind-chill factor.The soil is completely inaccessible, so I'll venture into the greenhouse to start some early veg sowing. If you're planning to do that yourself, remember to bring compost and some water into a warm spot first, to thaw and warm

in the wings, ready to cause devastation among seedlings.The various fungi responsible are generally soil borne, and thrive in damp compost. They find the very fragile young roots and stems of seedlings an easy conquest.But how does the fungi get

shouldn't carry on spreading. But I'm off to the plot now, armed with a big black bin liner and a pair of secateurs to cut off the haulms before the problem spread to the, as yet, untouched varieties. Now of course I can't compost it so I wonder if I

), the compost, the feed, the potting-on compost, the containers, in some cases the pest-sprays, the lighting and heating sometimes too. And that is not including the man-hours - probably the most unreliable, stressful and costly element in the equation!The other