Search - Articles

Save money by collecting and storing seed of your favourite hardy annuals, to sow next year. Saving seed from pot marigold, Calendula officinalis, couldn't be easier. Ensure you allow the seedheads to fully develop on the plant before collecting

With 23 days to go until we build our display at the Chelsea Flower Show, the first buds of pot marigolds, Calendula officinalis, are showing. Their timing couldn't have been more perfect.The marigolds will be in full flower in time for the show

Sow sweet peas and pinch out the growing tips of seedlings for bushier plants Continue harvesting chillies, peppers and other cropsReduce watering potted tuberous begonias to allow the top growth to die downBring pots of tender bulbs like agapanthus

Not everything in my garden is carefully planned, and I make no excuses for having it this way. It's a wise gardener that makes room for the unexpected, and the rewards this can bring. Leave an area of soil bare and something will grow, and while

Jekka McVicar's 10 companion plantsJekka McVicar's organic herb garden achieved a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show 2009. We caught up with her at the show to discover her top 10 herbs for growing as companion plants.Companion planting

, coriander, mint, thyme and rosemary.Then there are nasturtiums - vibrant, colourful blooms produced in profusion by these easy-to-grow hardy annuals. They have a warming, peppery flavour, not unlike watercress. Which is hardly surprising when you realise

. Others are collected and sown in pots in a more organised manner. Among the seeds I've saved this year are foxglove, hellebore, columbine, scabious, Jacob's ladder, snapdragon and calendula.Around my plot I leave lettuce, mizuna, watercress, broad beans

Are you snowed under with seed catalogues? It seems that even before the summer stutters to an end we have to start thinking about next year.I don't usually grow much in the way of annuals in my garden (apart from dahlias and poppies, of course

. In terms of value, a single perennial could cost you, say, £5.00 to buy, but you could pick up a packet of Godetia Dwarf Mixed flower seed for just £1.39, and grow 1,000 plants! Yes, 1,000 seeds in a packet, and other hardy annuals offer similar great value

instead of flowers.But the rebel in me only goes so far. I do like a straight line, so within the triangles I still grow the veg in rows. It's practical, and makes things easy to plant and harvest. But most of all it just looks so satisfyingly good.I use