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of the chicken yard and doing star-jumps in order to restore circulation.As a result I will take this opportunity to give you a bit of a pre-Christmas run down. I know that plants (apart from the ubiquitous poinsettia) do not figure much on Christmas lists

brown and crumbly and smelling of fertility without much effort.I am lucky enough to have a fair bit of space to use as a compostery (I am almost certain that is not a real word but I rather like the sound of it) and the way that my garden is planted

Plants are able to make their own food by capturing the energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar. But in order to stay healthy and give the best results they take additional nutrients out of the soil or compost, so it

should remain untouched during autumn in order to preserve shelter for critters. I maintain that we are allowed to clear up the messier plants in order to stop our gardens looking like bits of derelict bombsite for part of the year.I just thought it would

! After the disastrous summer we've had I'm relishing the thought of next season; I'm organising the crop rotation and digging the ground. The garlic couldn't have arrived at a better time.My garlic bulbs arrive by post as I ordered them online from a

to offer?But increasingly I'm coming to derive even more pleasure from evening perfumes - perhaps it's because all too often there seems to be little time to relax until it's nearly dark.Rumour has it that night-perfumed plants are scented in order

Occasionally, orchids need repotting to refresh their expanding root systems. Most indoor orchids are epiphytes, meaning they naturally grow attached to a tree branch with their roots clinging to the bark. In order to mimic their preferred growing

-by. In most situations this will be lovely, but in order to plant the tulips, the Hackney guerrilla gardeners ripped out a fair amount of established, flowering ivy.Tulip lovers might argue that ivy is not very cheerful, pretty or colourful, but its value

be sheltering slugs and snailsAround the gardenCollect seed from allium and sow straight awayPlant evergreen shrubs and conifer hedgesCarefully dig up gladioli corms FlowersKeep harvesting root veg such as beetroot and carrotsOrder fruit trees and bushes

Ladies and gentlemen, let us pause from our busy lives for a few minutes in order to consider the eryngium. Those of you an eye for a bargain will already be subscribers to Gardeners' World Magazine, and a few of you will have noticed my writing