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, according to Chief Horticultural Advisor Guy Barter. The growing season is getting longer, and plants are simply taking advantage.I don't know if my spring-flowering cherry is blooming late, or early. But not only is it in flower, it's also produced a second

A belated happy new year to one and all. May your beans be beauteous, your snapdragons sensational and your turnips on time. As I write this in the blushing dawn of the new year I feel it appropriate to come clean about something that I ought

Growing vegetables from seed can make a limited budget go a long way. Some crops, such as maincrop potatoes and onions are fairly cheap to buy in shops, so growing your own might not save you a lot of money. But runner bean, cherry tomato

herbs, lettuce, tomatoes and climbing beans, which I eat every day, just a few paces away. The most convenient way is to grow them in raised beds, which are much easier to look after. I now have a happy mix of winter salads and wallflowers growing

plants (such as peas and beans, clover, vetches and bird's foot trefoil) to provides bees with the best quality pollen and give them the greatest start in life. Mow your lawn less often to encourage white clover and birds’ foot trefoil to grow and provide

... 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

charming lady asked me a question about some scabby broad beans at Gardeners' World Live and I had to admit that I hadn't a clue; she gave me a very dirty look.In an attempt to improve my knowledge, I've been scuttling around my borders looking for critters

need to do less sitting, and more cultivation. But it doesn't look too bad. I can see where the recent snow has pressed the netting down over the strawberry bed, and the canes from last year's French beans have blown over. But apart from that it doesn

!One section of my long potato bed, is being left for autumn planting broad beans, which I'll sow at the end of October or the start of November (I always use 'Aquadulce Claudia' and 'The Sutton' at this time of year). Another section is marked out for sweet

of generous triangular zigzags, just for fun. And doing so has really jazzed up my display. Now I can make patterns with lettuces at the feet of broad beans with tall peas shooting up behind. It’s a bit like planning a mixed herbaceous border, but with veg