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Should I feel guilty about heating my greenhouse? While I'm turning the heat down in my home to save energy, keep bills down, and reduce CO2 emissions, here I am considering heating my greenhouse to both protect plants through winter and provide

litter (which releases noxious gases as it breaks down), or if snow covers the pond and prevents the plants from photosynthesising, gases can build up in the pond and kill the frogs.ARC suggests doing the following: make a hole in the ice by leaving a pan

delicious soup). Before I know it I'm dodging blackberries, pears and plums on the towpath instead of ice and snow.Just last night my girlfriend came home with a bag of cherries she'd plucked from a tree in our local park. They were delicious and sweet

wins.Before the introduction of the potato to Europe in 1536, the parsnip was a much more mainstream vegetable than it is now. Parsnips are pretty easy to grow by sowing directly into the ground around March and April - dig the ground well as lumps

The snow has, at least temporarily, left us. It took a long time to go, but now even the grubby snowdrifts lurking in the shelter of cold woods have finally melted, leaving weird bits of stranded debris.The loveliness and gorgeous all

foolish as to think that spring is here - we are more than likely to get whacked by frost or snow before then - but at least it is showing willing.One of the best things about this time of year is scent. Flowers are pretty rare but there are a few plants

and work well as part of a mixed border - I have a lovely white iris called Iris sibirica 'Snow Queen' and a blue one called 'Emperor'.These are fine, but they pale into insignificance compared to the huge, complicated flowers of their bearded cousins. Each

Are you snowed under with seed catalogues? It seems that even before the summer stutters to an end we have to start thinking about next year.I don't usually grow much in the way of annuals in my garden (apart from dahlias and poppies, of course

wasted.Later in October I'll be able to start picking other varieties (I've about 10 in all), including Cox, that have also cropped really well this year. These later ripening varieties do store much better, so I set them out in wooden, stacking trays

what is going on.Snow is forecast so the Kodak moments are only going to get better.So even if you can't do much gardening at this time of year, at least get out there and take some photographs. In the words of  Telly Savalas in his extraordinarily