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It's been a good year for many crops, but there have been so many critters feeding on the fruit.Most years we lose a fair few apples to the local birds. I never really mind, although it is irritating when they peck small holes in fruits, which

150 years. It feeds on the fruits, using its stylet mouthparts to suck out the juices, in autumn moving to the berries of yew, which also grows profusely on the chalk downs.However, during the 1990s Gonocerus was found, first, at Bookham Common

at RHS Garden Rosemoor, growing on the edge of a pond. It is well worth a trip to these lovely gardens in Devon to see it (and at this time of year there is the bonus of watching the apple harvest there.)I first saw Gunnera manicata when I was a small boy

first venture into growing fruit and veg, and the many mistakes I made while progressing to the level I'm at today (pretty good, I think). It's been a steep learning curve.For a brief spell, aged 11, I had a vegetable patch of my own. My mother – a

Conifer Growers are trying to persuade us all that there's a conifer for every garden, and we should all be growing more. National Conifer Week started last Saturday 3 October and runs through to Sunday 11 October, with a message to everyone that conifers

and cooking crops. Do let us know in the comments section of this blog if there are any harvesting tips you'd like us to cover.Finally, do join me and a host of other experts on the ‘Grow Your Own’ Garden at BBC Gardeners' World Live (15-19 June 2011) for more

strong new shoots from the base. You may need to use long-handled loppers for more leverage if the wood is thick and tough.To rejuvenate old shrubs or coppice shrubs that are grown for the colour of their stems, hard prune all the stems down to 10cm - 15

It's blackberry time - not those machines, without which many "suits" would feel emasculated, but fat berries swollen by rain and aching for crumble. The blackberry bramble is a weed, and the perfect example of a plant simply growing in the wrong

spots are covering the leaves and your hard work has been lost.This year I'm growing 10 different varieties of salad potato for a taste trial for Gardeners' World magazine, some of them, like 'Pink Fir Apple', are late maincrop varieties, so there doesn

: there seems little point in weeding much (the nights are too cold for most annual weeds to bother with seeding themselves), why bother to tie back a sprawling plant when you are going to cut them all down anyway soon? Even the grass stops growing quite