Search - Articles

desirable residence.The queen starts off by chewing up bits of wood to form a small, round paper nest. In it, she initially lays a small number of eggs, which become grubs and then wasp workers that help to feed more grubs the queen produces over the summer

I've recently been working my way through 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People', a self-help book by Stephen Covey, and was immensely impressed that it has something to teach us gardeners.In the book, Covey describes how he got his son to look

I've always wanted to take better pictures of my garden and allotment, not just for the sake of keeping a record, but for the pure artistic pleasure of it.Up till now I've been rather stupidly remiss: I took on an overgrown allotment, but I simply

and tolerate more shade than sweet cherries, though beware of claims that they grow well on north-facing walls as they can become spindly. When it comes to planting on an allotment or small space, their size and spread make them ideal.I've ordered a variety

, but that's a lot of potatoes to plant if you only have a small amount of space. Some allotment shops buy in seed potatoes then break up the packs so that you can buy smaller amounts. Similarly, potato fairs like the one held at Garden Organic in Coventry

the garden centre, ready to plant.Plant them 10cm apart (15cm if you want bigger onions) and keep them well watered in dry weather. Onions don't like growing in recently manured ground, but they do like fairly rich soil, so if you have any home-made compost

We've just received our letter of renewal on the allotment lease - it always reminds me of how fortunate we are to be able to rent the land for such a small amount of money. Others might not be feeling so content.  At this time of year some plot

I've just written a piece about a taste test I conducted on rhubarb for the November issue of Gardeners' World magazine, which includes a Top 10 of the best varieties for flavour. One of the things my editor had asked me to write about is how we