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.Beefsteak tomato plants are as robust as any other greenhouse variety, taking up just as much space, but producing a fraction of the total yield you would expect. Yes, individual fruits are bigger, but in my book bigger isn't always better!Rather than producing

, brought into the warm and protected environment of my greenhouse to ripen in time for Wimbledon. When I came to harvest them, bowl in hand, the fruits were gone.Now it's the blackberries, which are just starting to ripen and will hopefully provide rich

and peppers as there are so many varieties to choose from. My favourite sweet red pepper (or capsicum) last year was 'Bell Boy', which had large green fruits that ripened to red. They were delicious in stir-fries and Thai curries - our family favourites

outside had produced four or five fruits. Now this I had to try.Unfortunately their melons were trial varieties, and until the trial comes to an end in a couple of years we won't know whether any of these will be introduced to the gardening public

with the stuff, every shrub and fruit bush mulched with a thick layer, and still the overflowing buckets continued to come!I'm a keen home composter - who isn't these days - but I do still resort to buying in mushroom compost from time to time. If I lived near a

the fruits...one happy gardener!One thing this season has taught me is that prevention really is better than cure, and this is a prime example. Delay control until later in the year and the damage is done, but hang up those pheromone traps early and you can

... 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

trees for a small garden. The current wave of interest in 'grow your own' should see even more people including fruit trees in their gardens, and the coming months are a perfect time to plant them. Last winter I made space for a 'family' apple tree