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Sending compostable waste to landfill is criminal, and while many gardeners do their bit to compost kitchen and garden waste, I'm sure many people could do more.I'm keen to recycle everything I can. This makes sense on two counts: it reduces

This weekend is the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, the world's largest bird survey. In last year's Birdwatch, over 400,000 people sat for an hour and noted which species visited their gardens; six million birds were counted. The Big Garden Birdwatch

I'm rather fond of rhubarb, preferably under a thick blanket of butter crumble or stewed with a dollop of organic vanilla ice-cream.We normally have a great crop from our organic kitchen garden, but this year my rhubarb plants are producing flowers

soggy mess.One advantage of the rainfall has been the success of the biological control I applied to some areas of my kitchen garden. Nematodes are added to water and applied to the soil in spring. They thrive in warm, moist soil and when they come

in there.The garden spiders, Aranaeus diadematus, are starting to get very large and obvious, especially those round the compost bins. We compost everything we can, including kitchen waste, so clouds of fruit flies emerge every time I lift off the lid. Even

We have a tiny patch of long grass in our garden, less than a couple of square metres. It's mostly the exceedingly common Yorkshire fog (Holcus lanatus) and false oat (Arrhenatherum elatius). Nevertheless, it's attracting several butterflies

and the weeds will grow through regardless!So, if I'm ever asked for a gardening tip for a new gardener it would have to be mulch, mulch, mulch. Home-made compost costs you nothing, so make as much as you can from kitchen and garden waste as well as leaves

with snow. My advice would be to hold off until mid-March.I've just finished pruning the myrtles. Myrtle is a wonderful herb, not only for the beauty of the flowers, but also for the amazing aromas and flavours it creates in the kitchen. You can't go wrong

topiary. In the winter they provide structure and add tone; in the summer they seem like benevolent aunts standing stiffly, but attentively, above a gambolling chaos of flower and lawn.You don't need a huge stately garden to use topiary. In my garden I

I've just spent a fair bit of time trashing and destroying parts of my garden. I do this not out of irritation and frustration, nor have I temporarily lost control of my senses at the first sign of some half-decent weather. No, I do this because I