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; for the first time I've been able to run an extension to my greenhouse to power an electric propagator. When temperatures all around have fallen, the propagator maintains a warming 20Ë?C, perfect for germinating most seeds.I always grow an assortment of chillies

, 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.

.Still, five months of immense pleasure is quite something from plants costing about £2 each. What other plant could beat these New Guinea busy Lizzies? Ordinary impatiens are one thing, but as breeders have concentrated on creating compact hybrids they've lost

their roots and the more they concentrate on producing suckers the less they bother about fruit, so I'll plant it within a cube of paving slabs to contain it. Will it take a year to settle in or will I be picking figs this September?

want to grow, especially with my new rule to only grow what doesn't need picking every day. That will narrow down my choices quite considerably.Funnily enough I've been talking tomatoes a lot this week with the plumber, Matt. Turns out that he's a mad

cycle, surviving the winter in the silk-cocooned egg stage, Tegenaria females can live for several years, a result of living in those sheltered voids and avoiding the extremes of wet and cold suffered by outdoor species.I once very cavalierly picked up

If you want fast fruit then look no further than strawberries. From rather unpromising cold-stored runners, foliage will develop in days, flowers in weeks, with ripe fruit ready for picking in about two months.Commercially available strawberry

not to worry. Unlike honeybees and wasps, bumblebees are very docile and not prone to attack even if you stand right in front of the nest entrance. Having said that, four-year-old picked up what he thought was a dead one on the path nearby and it promptly stung

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

was solved a couple of days later when I watched a bird delicately pick bright red berries from an ornamental shrub down in Purley. I made a few notes: grey head, dark cheek patch, reddish brown wings, pale grey breast, brownish bib, white side flecks, pale