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harvested potatoes, and sorting them into bags. But my approach to ornamental crops is much more random and haphazard: I just notice what has done well and what has been disappointing.This year, the pelargoniums growing in containers near our front steps

and bumps will make them adopt unnecessarily distorted shapes. Oh, and don't add too much manure, as that will make them fork. The roots are best harvested after the frost has been, as the cold tends to make them much sweeter and more delicious.My wife

? Arm yourself with a good field guide to ensure you're not eating anything poisonous, and look on weeding as harvest time.

with bell cloches for my courgette plants has paid off. Planted before my recent trip to the Canaries and Madeira, the plants are now covered with flowers, and this morning I spotted the first tiny courgettes forming. I can’t wait for the harvest.I’ll plant

perfect, carefully pollinated by hand using a brush to ensure good fruit set. Once early frosts were over I'd inspect my peach tree to count the developing fruits, looking forward to summer harvests.And then the mystery begins. One day the fruit is there

for sowing next year's coriander crop. Allow the seeds to ripen fully on the plant before harvesting.In the greenhouse I save seed from chillies, tomatoes and sweet peppers. The rule of thumb here is not to save seed from F1 hybrid varieties, as their progeny

at RHS Garden Rosemoor, growing on the edge of a pond. It is well worth a trip to these lovely gardens in Devon to see it (and at this time of year there is the bonus of watching the apple harvest there.)I first saw Gunnera manicata when I was a small boy

, studded with little fruits. To help it along I covered it with the largest cloche I could find.The strawberries, including the summer fruiters I mentioned in my last blog, are still producing fruit (unlike the raspberries). We harvest a cereal bowl full

of herbs for fish dishesHow to grow herbs for poultry dishesAdvice on creating a pot of herbs for vegetable dishesGrowing and harvesting herbs

to three years. Each clump should have about six leaf shoots and should be replanted about 20-30cm apart and 5cm deep in well-prepared soil.Alternatively, harvest the seeds and store them over winter in cool conditions, then sow them in spring in moist