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themselves. And just about every person I know loves to eat home-grown produce, too.I got my kids started with the obvious crops: potatoes (children love digging for the tubers when they're ready), raspberries (no need to pester children to eat fruit when

peas in pots, and pinch out shoot tipsCut old stems of mallow (Lavatera) to ground levelPlant hedging plantsFlowersCover rhubarb with an old bucket to exclude lightPrune gooseberry bushes to open up the centreChit seed potatoes in trays in a bright

At this time of year it’s all too easy to stay indoors and become a couch potato. When I do venture into the garden, my fingers ache with the cold and the ground is so slippery I can barely stay upright. I can’t even warm up by working the soil

nutritious for both other plants and humans.Follow our tips on putting nettles to good use - but be sure to wear gloves at all times when handling them.For a basic soup you'll need about 200g of fresh nettle tips. Add 450g of potatoes, peeled and cubed, a

heard of.So I'm quite impressed when I discover that I actually have two other species living in my potato peelings and banana skins: D. immigrans and D. hydei. Both are apparently very common in 'decaying vegetable matter'. I'll remember that when I

is the better, as far as I'm concerned. I love playing Christmas games and having a proper tree and proper food - preferably from the plot. We're still working our way through the sacks of potatoes in the garage so it's going to be roasted 'Picasso' and boiled

produces quite a bag of potato and vegetable peelings, and wrapped in newspaper these can feed my compost heap.Yes, newspaper can be composted, and so can plain cardboard including corrugated boxes, tubes from toilet and kitchen paper rolls as well as egg

, while improving its structure and water-retaining ability.But this year there's a problem. The RHS Members' Advisory Service has received a high number of calls from gardeners reporting abnormal growth of various vegetable crops, including potatoes

.On the basis that next summer surely can't be any shorter or cooler than the one we had in 2008, I've sent off for some sweet potato slips. I'm hoping that we'll have the right conditions for producing a successful harvest this time around (last year it seemed

aminopyralid, which distorted and sometimes killed crops. Plants most affected included potatoes and tomatoes, peas and beans, carrots and lettuce. Aminopyralid is slow to break down, so it seems likely that it could cause problems for some years.So, to give