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. Choose large plants for instant impact.More advice on growing herbsHow to pick herbs effectively.Learn about medicinal herbs.Planting up a hanging basket with parsley and tomatoes.Potting up a window box with herbs.Propagating lavender and rosemary.

parsley and sorrel will sulk if the compost dries out in hot sun, so place the container in partial shade. Feed weekly with seaweed extract until early autumn, to encourage leaf production, and to keep plants sweet and succulent.Cut off the faded flower

. Alternatively, chop and add them to a barbecue marinade.French tarragon has a zingy, aniseed flavour and helps us digest the rich sauces often used with chicken. Bay, sage and parsley are the traditional herbs for stuffing mixes, and Greek sage has a spicy, warm

that shade ripening tomatoes. Pick parsley leaves when young for the best flavour.More inspiration for edible container featuresLearn how to grow your own display of edible herbs.Start growing fruit with a strawberry hanging basket.Plant a lavender garden

Absence will always make the heart grow fonder: especially in gardens. I have just got back after a few days at the Malvern Spring Show — which was, as always, great fun, pretty fabulous and completely exhausting — and it is amazing how much fuller

Sow seeds of herbs in pots to grow on your kitchen windowsill, such as coriander, parsley and basilLook out for woolly aphid on fruit trees, and spray any with soapy waterThin out seedlings from earlier sowings to their final spacings

in growing bagsHarvest early potatoes, carrots and salad cropsPrune the sideshoots of gooseberry bushes back to just five leavesCut out congested raspberry canes at soil level, or those popping up in pathsFeed all crops with a liquid fertiliserSow seeds

Plant prepared hyacinth bulbs in special hyacinth vases (available at garden centres) or in pots of bulb fibreSow parsley in modular traysWater crops in growing bags and potsOpen vents each day, but close them at night if the weather turns cold

, but it still seems so to me as I haven't grown many crops in it. Last summer all I had time for was a few chillies and some pak choi - both of which were fab.Then I took a chance in the autumn with some salad leaves and parsley, in the hope that they

and leafy plants naturally want to create seeds, and once they get to that stage, it means the end of a herb like parsley, chives or basil. So pick leaves early and often to encourage the plant to put out more foliage and prevent it from running to seed