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bumblebees. With an ample supply of fruit blossom around, there is plenty of nectar and pollen for them to enjoy, and all are welcome.One good thing about growing a single 'Victoria' plum tree is that it’s self-fertile. Unlike many varieties of fruit, like

- organic home-grown plums to eat straight from the tree with enough left over to freeze and cook during winter. My 'Victoria' plums are swelling nicely, so I just hope they have the flavour to match their appearance.Crops have certainly been affected

should net the trees, but they're growing in such a difficult place it would be more trouble than it's worth.Our plum and gage trees, however, are laden with fruit – so much so that the heavy crops are bending branches. Sadly, the quality of fruit

by brown rot. They were still delicious, though. The first plums were all harvested yesterday as they too were targeted by wasps.There has been a steady flow of blackbirds into my greenhouse - presumably after the tomatoes. I really adore blackbirds

simply sold as 'sweetcorn', 'tomato' or 'white potato' when you haven't a clue what the variety actually is? We can be far more discerning, as both consumers and gardeners, choosing and growing named varieties of crops that have the flavour and eating

time, our damson tree has cropped. This seems to have been the best year for growing stone fruit in ages - the crop is enormous. Just today we were harvesting damsons, filling trugs to the brim with soft, superbly tasty fruits. It was worth the wait

favourite for flavour. 'Brandywine' looks great but it doesn't seem like the sort I'd want to put in a salad. Plum type 'Roma' has had mixed reviews, but I'm tempted to try it as it's has a semi-bush habit, enabling me to grow it in troughs hung from

Good morning and happy 'Grow Your Own' Week to you all.There are, I have to admit, many other gardeners who are hotter on vegetable growing than me. Give me herbaceous borders and I can muddle through and make them look pretty good, but when

's Delight' is great for eating fresh in salads I'm looking for something meatier to cook in soups or sauces, so for this my tomato of choice is the large Italian plum tomato called 'Roma'. It's fat, fleshy and very productive when grown outside in a sunny

-trained plum. It forms quite a thicket, with stems growing 3-4m long by the end of summer, so it does need a bit of space. Tiny white flowers will form on the stems that developed into fat green pods. Picked small I throw the whole pod into stir fries, but when