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How hard would it be to design green roofs for cars? Just imagine: you stop off to pick up some groceries, and on returning to your car, you find it's alive with the sight and sound of butterflies and bees tucking into the supply of nectar on its

To celebrate Gardeners' World Magazine's Harvest Week, running from 12-18 September, I thought I'd share a few of my favourite easy harvest recipes. One of them is a salad - so isn't technically a recipe - but it's so good it's worth a mention

the ground. (I love dandelion leaves. There're so crunchy and refreshing after a winter of meagre salads. The trick is to pick them before they flower, after which they can taste bitter.) Then the nettles and wild garlic appear (which together make a

as the plants start to flower.The spinach I'm growing in troughs as a salad crop, as you need to grow buckets of it for cooking and I don't have the space. Spinach is also prone to leaf miner fly, which bores holes into the leaves and lays eggs, so picking

What an odd assortment of weather we've had this year. In just 12 months my garden has experienced heavy snow, a spring heatwave followed by a drab, damp summer, then a second heatwave in autumn. Some parts of the country have experienced drought

stubbing - I couldn't move my foot. Comforting myself with the knowledge that most people who think they've broken a toe actually haven't, I cycled the 15 miles home and had a bath.The next morning my foot was so swollen I couldn't walk. I managed to drag

and children hate the smell of strongly scented hyacinths and paper-white narcissi, which he's not allowed to grow in the house.I don't like the scent of poppy stems and I hate poppy sap. I'm sure it evokes a childhood memory - probably of picking them

paid to any remaining mealybugs.I moved house five times over the next 18 months, so the half-dead orange lived at my partner's mum's, then my mum's, where it picked up a fresh mealybug infestation before I finally brought it home to a flat full of vine

This year I'm determined to only grow one variety of tomato. This is because my garden was overrun with tomato plants last year and I couldn't get onto my patio for growing bags and poorly staked cordons. So 2011 will see a more streamlined effort

. Hot and humid is best, apparently.In any one area, ants from thousands of nests will take to the skies at once, forming large, mating swarms. It's exciting, not least for insect-eating birds, which have rich pickings for a day or two. Of the bird