Search - Articles

garden is tiny and my soil shallow, so I'm growing dwarf French beans and spinach in pots.As well as being small, with shallow soil, my garden is shady, but it gets two hours of strong sun in the afternoon, which I hope will be enough for French beans

As container-grown fruit and veg start to crop, it's important keep your eye on the ball to ensure they stay productive. I've just harvested a small batch of French beans from my late container sowing as part of the Grow Yourself Healthy campaign

.I love the way home-grown salads start off as a meagre collection of leaves in spring, then steadily grow as tomatoes, broad beans and other ingredients are ready to harvest. The watercress growing in my pond is always the first leaf crop I pick, followed

for eating in salads, some for using in sauces and some for roasting. My aubergines will be so plentiful, I won’t need to buy any again (no matter how many aubergine parmigianas I make). I’ll grow enough garlic to hang in plaits around my kitchen and my

I've a confession to make: my efforts at growing veg in pots, as part of this year's Grow Yourself Healthy campaign, haven't been a great success. The French beans I sowed indoors germinated well, but as soon as I moved the pot outside, Sid

), the beans were stringy, the courgettes didn’t thrive and the lettuce was eaten by slugs.  My compost heap was good though. I’ve always loved a good compost heap.I had a break until a few years ago, when my dad brought me a couple of tomato plants to grow

in hanging baskets and pumpkins confused with courgettes, but everything was slightly leggy (due to the short days and low levels of sunlight) and there were too many plants for me to look after each one properly.Most plants ended up growing well eventually

, amaranth, squashes, broad beans and also lupins, which they harvested for their seeds.The terraces proved perfect for the production of food. The stone walls would warm up quickly, creating a warmer microclimate within the terrace and enabling some crops