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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

biodegradable pots that can be filled with compost for seed sowing. The secret to using is to keep the cardboard moist, otherwise it acts as a wick removing moisture from the compost within. Dry cardboard also prevents seedling roots penetrating. By encouraging

It's this time of year when the allotments become a frenzy of activity. Everyone is digging, composting and manuring like mad. My neighbours Mr and Mrs Ron wait until Easter, then till and plant their three plots within a week. The rest of us just

, like programming the central heating, putting up shelves, plugging in the DVD player. One Christmas I was handed a spade and told to "kill the rats in the compost bin". My mum has two plastic compost bins next to each other, and the lone rat (as

) was of a Chinese juniper 1.5m tall and 3.5m wide growing in a small, overcrowded garden. Over a period of years it was dug up, pruned and replanted until it fitted into a pot. The whole process took about a quarter of a century and is far from over.The art

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

the situation. Suffice to say that some of that rabbit reappeared in the kitchen a couple of hours later.Yesterday I was wandering back from the compost heap minding my own business when there was rustling in the undergrowth and out shot … a muntjac. Harrumph

one thing in common they were all 100 per cent compostable. Those primary school children taking part in this competition not only had the fun of creating something beautiful from natural materials collected from their gardens and school grounds

Last year I had a great crop of chillies. I was so pleased with them that I couldn't bear to throw the plants on the compost heap when they'd finished fruiting. So I saved my favourite two to overwinter indoors as an experiment in chilli endurance

crops are loving it.Despite opening-up every vent in the greenhouse early, jamming the double doors wide open and damping down the floor with a hose, the temperature inside had already 31°C by 10am.At this time of year we need to be particularly