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. If all goes well we should be in for an early salad crop next season - as long as the slugs don't get them that is!

to germinate. Take your guess as to what had them - rot, rodents or slugs - but I think it was probably a hungry mouse. So, this year I started them in pots in a sheltered corner at home, planting them out once they were a few inches tall. It's more work

hens. Now, once again, we have plenty hens and plenty of eggs. The garden will soon benefit from larger quantities of well-rotted poultry manure and we should also see a decline in the numbers of slugs and snails.I expected the kids to be happy - I

of all.Other than a bit of slug damage (you didn't think I'd get off that easily did you?) the plants look very good. The fledgling sprouts are forming nicely and each top knot of leaves is lush and sturdy. It all bodes rather well for Christmas dinner

There are times when it is, quite frankly, just too freezing to do any work in the garden. In some ways I'm glad of the harsh weather; it should help to finish off garden pests such as slugs, and spores of fungal diseases such as tulip fire

I'm gradually filling up the beds on the allotment. Last week I planted main crop potatoes – a variety called Picasso, which doesn't seem too prone to slugs, and one called Cara, which is cited in catalogues as 'the allotment favourite'. I

are best sown under cover to give them a good start. A few weeks in the greenhouse and they'll grow into big, healthy plants that should withstand the attentions of slugs once they've been planted out.Before I had my greenhouse, I had a production line

two beds with one variety growing in each - 'Florence' and 'Honeyoe'. They've been in the ground for four years and are in their harvesting prime. Add to that plenty of sunshine and a timely dry spell that's keeping the slugs and snails at bay, and you

In early spring, there were a lot of discussions in the garden media over whether the harsh winter would have reduced numbers of garden pests.The slugs and snails were slow to appear after the cold, dry April. But most other critters, good and bad

pleased by the discovery of slugs, snails and leaf miners. One commenter suggested I take a closer look at leaf miners, which he described as "fascinating".Leaf miners literally 'mine' leaves, tunnelling through them and eating them from the inside, before