Search - Articles

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

Sending compostable waste to landfill is criminal, and while many gardeners do their bit to compost kitchen and garden waste, I'm sure many people could do more.I'm keen to recycle everything I can. This makes sense on two counts: it reduces

My two compost bins are being very productive. As well as yielding their first crop of usable compost, now spread over back and front gardens to great effect, they are also home to a heaving mass of wildlife. Every time I open the lids a great cloud

... round shrubs, roses and flowers, along the base of the hedge, around fruit trees and bushes, and over the veg plot. Beans get a good, deep mulch of compost to help conserve soil moisture, too, but it's not just water retention that mulching is good for

Who could ever produce enough compost for all their needs? I remember watching the late Geoff Hamilton at Barnsdale week after week on Gardeners' World, using countless buckets of beautiful home-made compost. Every planting hole was filled

to leave. The beds dedicated to growing hungry crops, such as beans and courgettes will need plenty of organic matter added, such as garden compost or well-rotted horse manure.Beds dedicated to growing root crops, such as carrots and parsnips will not have

distraction. Last autumn I stopped watering my begonias and left the plants to die down on their own, thinking their tubers could safely overwinter in pots of dry compost. How wrong I was. I've just tipped some out to replant into fresh compost but discovered

this method for sowing seeds saved from your own dahlia plants at the end of the previous season.10cm pot or seed trayMulti-purpose compost Dahlia seedsPlant label and pencilClear polythene bag and rubber band (for pot) or propagator lid (for seed tray

-seeded readily. Once they've flowered, the seed heads ripen and split, scattering their contents onto the soil below. I've rested pots of compost around them to catch the seed in the past, or it can just be collected by hand.Freshly sown foxglove seeds germinate

have to repeat the process several times.The autumn free fall is a real bonus. Leaves rot down into gorgeous compost, so I'll make the most of my free supply. On lawns they're easy to collect. I simply raise the cutting height on my mower blades