Search - Articles

and rush home to make tomato and mozzerella salads (it was then that I first had the urge to grow basil).The next year I asked my girlfriend what we should try growing on the balcony. "Sweetcorn", she said. So I did. I grew six sweetcorn plants on the sixth

by tiny amounts of mint and anything I've managed to grow indoors.By summer I am able to make what my partner and I call a 'Chef Salad', based on a wonderful dish we once had while dining out. It consists of as many types of leaf as possible, plus tomatoes

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

, while, according to folklore, the long taproot makes a good liver tonic and could even cure gallstones. A small seedling appeared in one of my pots last week, but I'm letting it grow and seed around the garden before I start tucking in. I've also

I've a confession to make: my efforts at growing veg in pots, as part of this year's Grow Yourself Healthy campaign, haven't been a great success. The French beans I sowed indoors germinated well, but as soon as I moved the pot outside, Sid

for a while, but they're relatively new to the amateur veg grower. I don't really understand the science beyond my basic grasp of grafting, but a grafted aubergine is simply an aubergine plant grafted onto some sort of turbo rootstock, which makes

trellises so it doesn't clutter up the patio. It has a thick flesh though, making it more suited to sauces than salads, so I'll need to grow a salad type, too. 'Ailsa Craig' and 'Inca' were also given the thumbs up, while good old, reliable 'Gardener

and disease resistance. Potassium is naturally found in wood ash and deep-rooted plants like comfrey. I grow comfrey in the garden and use it to make a liquid feed for my fruiting crops.It's also important not to let leafy crops, like lettuce, or root crops

. And why not? Last weekend I made the most wonderful apple crumble I have ever eaten, using this BBC Good Food recipe (I ignored the instructions to add jam and orange juice to the apples).My garden might not be too small to grow apples, but its soil is too