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A 'weed' is just a plant growing in the 'wrong place', and in my garden, most weeds are more than welcome. There are some exceptions, of course - Japanese knotweed and Himalayan balsam to name two - but the more green leafy weeds in my plot

to grow (where would I be without 'Sakura', 'Gardener's Delight' and 'Scatalone'?), but my success this must be attributed to the weather. Our freezer will be packed to bursting this year with fresh tomato pasta sauce.In my view it is so much easier

Root vegetables such as carrots and parsnips don't like my garden. I can understand why: the soil is full of rocks, which can lead to the formation of forked roots. It also has a fair amount of clay, which causes the seeds to rot before they've even

Autumn has definitely arrived in my hill-top garden. The lawn is soaked in dew each morning and suddenly many of my crops have given up the ghost. But oddly enough, the place that I've noticed the seasonal shift the most is in my greenhouse

eye on the weather forecast, and a few very large sheets of white fleece close at hand. When frost is forecast, I go out the evening before to cover all the flowers I can reach. I wrap the fleece around branches, drape it over fan-trained fruits

I’m a big fan of raspberries, which are the most reliable of all the soft fruit crops that I grow. My soil is heavy and alkaline, and I’ve found that autumn-fruiting raspberries last much longer in it than summer-fruiting varieties. So now I stick

for eating in salads, some for using in sauces and some for roasting. My aubergines will be so plentiful, I won’t need to buy any again (no matter how many aubergine parmigianas I make). I’ll grow enough garlic to hang in plaits around my kitchen and my

protected.Of course there's an answer, and that's what fruit cages were invented for, but when you integrate soft fruits around the garden to make best use of space these aren't a viable solution. Large pieces of netting play a part, thrown over fruit

rightly - and while not unpleasant, they were certainly an acquired taste.Dandelions grow bigger, with longer leaves, in wild areas than they do in lawns, where mowing keeps them flat and close to soil level. Apparently, the French often eat them as a

the coming months, I've already started planting bulbs for the 2010 crop. The ground has been forked over thoroughly, some well-rotted garden compost added and ridges made - a particularly good idea with soil as heavy as mine. I've planted bulbs of two