Search - Articles

little late! Tulips are more expensive but are still cheaper than shop-bought blooms. It's also immensely satsfying to go out and pick your own flowers as the urge takes you. Air Miles? What Air Miles?

the flower spreads back into the young courgette. Although there is little you can do about the weather, it is well worth checking courgettes and marrows daily. As soon as the fruit is formed, I pick off the flower, ideally before the petals get a chance

brilliantly, producing the biggest fruits yet, but as soon as they approached ripeness, the wasps attacked. As a result I picked them a little earlier than I would have liked. We ate many of the peaches while they were still hard, before they too were spoiled

forward to seeing more strident colours, too – the roaring reds of the liquidambars and screaming orange amelanchiers. I can’t wait to find the guelder rose thickly covered with berries and the blackthorn bearing sloes, which positively beg to be picked

I’ve just been outside picking strawberries. Despite the colder nights my plants are still fruiting away and I hope they’ll have enough energy left to fruit again at the right time next year.None of the fruits have been damaged by birds – perhaps

to flower.My hellebores are out now too, and most are looking good. Unfortunately some are showing signs of hellebore leaf spot disease. The characteristic purple-black blotches are spreading from the foliage to some of the flowers. The best I can do is pick

, at most their feeding results in a little bit of shoot distortion, so leave them alone, or if you really can't bear them, remove them by hand-picking or jetting them off with a hose.

many hours. The change from one of the loveliest perfumes I know to one of the deepest-drain-grim stenches I know, is phenomenal. But of course it's the regular picking - largely by my children - which has allowed the plants to keep producing more

any more spores about than absolutely necessary) I confined each plant to the bin bag.The stems had gone from sturdy bright green to fuzzy and fungal within the space of 48 hours. Tomorrow I will pick all the tomatoes, aubergines and peppers

.I find myself buying cyclamen for all areas of the house, including the windowsills and bedrooms. If you shop around you can pick them up from as little as £1.99. And to add to the impact of the foliage and the flowers, many vareities now have a delicate