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a plate offering more than green leaves, so a mix of colourful lettuce, red-veined beetroot, thinly sliced circles of white radish, red tomatoes and diced yellow peppers really hits the spot. You can really let your creative, artistic side take over

they simply become bird food!Crops are planted in beds about 1m wide with a narrow paved path between each for easy access. I've just finished digging the beds, adding plenty of homemade compost deep down in the process, and now I'm planning what to grow

worthwhile. A short row of raspberries just 1.2m long has produced several pickings, used to add tasty home-grown vitamins to my morning bowl of cereal. Blackberries are now taking over, and I'd thoroughly recommend thornless varieties to give regular

, 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

will not grow 'true’. You can still try, but there's no guarantee of the quality of the crop. There's more information on saving seed in Sue Stickland's article in the September 2011 issue of Gardeners' World Magazine.So which seeds are you saving?

of salad leaves possible; lettuce, spinach, pak choi, mizuna, beetroot, watercress, parsley and chives, as well as tomatoes, beans, courgettes and new potatoes. Although I've tried growing them, I haven't had much success with either sweet potatoes or soya

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

to pesticides where possible, so I don't use slug pellets. This season I've discovered the versatility of copper in my battle with Britain's No.1 garden pest. It's been found that copper rings and tape provide an effective barrier across which slugs and snails