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. Remove a generous bunch with secateurs.Squash the berries onto a sheet of kitchen towel and clean away the skin and flesh to expose the bare seeds. Alternatively, clean away the flesh by running them under the cold tap in a sieve.Fill a small pot

to sow any butternut squash seeds; it was too late by the time I realised.I try to stick to my crop rotation plan and to save time, I sow many seeds directly into the ground, such as carrots, beetroot, chard and parsnips. This method works, as long

then the air was positively dripping. So, I'm amazed at just how little blight I've seen on tomatoes or potatoes.There was some blight on a few of the potato varieties I've been growing this year, but even then the brown patches on the leaves remained as tight

that it's stopped and I've dried out - horribly dismal. And what's more it stopped me heading up to the plot for a good clear up session after the frosts.You see I love a good tidy up! The frost will have turned everything that was still attempting to grow

on the apple trees is already showing its colours and the fruits are changing shade as they ripen. The pumpkins and butternut squashes, too, are showing a hint of colour and the sweet corn tassels have turned brown at long last, which means they should

draw up a crop rotation plan. I actually drew a rough outline of where I was going to grow this year's crops in the autumn, before putting in the onions and garlic. Typically, I never got around to finishing it off.My crop rotation plan comprises a

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

settle down by the Christmas tree, and while the kids enjoy the repeats on television I can get down to the serious business of writing my seed orders for 2008. And what a year it's going to be if the seed catalogues are to be believed.Many seed companies

of coming up with the name of the plant, I was instantly transported back to the kitchen of the house I grew up in. On red floor tiles just inside the pantry, next to bottles of squash and my mum's wine-making kit, was a brown ceramic vase containing dried

, finding a fasciated marsh thistle, Cirsium palustre, somewhere in the flood plain of the River Cuckmere, near Alfriston, Sussex, when I was aged 12 or 13. I thought I had found some exciting new plant, or strange metamorphic phenomenon. I was amazed how