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and expertise it takes to get fruit trees ready and trained to this level.Once new trees are bought and planted in newly enriched soil, you can look forward to the first crop in a few years time. If you’re intending to buy new fruit trees this spring, I

People are always banging on about summer salads, but it's the winter months when I crave fresh, green leaves. Even now in April, there's still not enough fresh greenery about, despite the fact that spring is well and truly here. Just the other

I couldn't be happier. The sun is shining and it almost feels as if spring is here.  Just last week there was standing water in the bottom few feet of one of my plots; the soil was completely submerged and saturated. Conditions were so wet

Every year I grow masses of garlic. It's one of the easiest and most satisfying crops to grow, and my entire family adores it. My son has just lifted the autumn-planted crop. This is mostly my favourite variety, 'Albigensian', with four or five

are available from mail order fruit suppliers for immediate potting. Kept on greenhouse staging, they quickly grow during spring. It’s important to be vigilant for signs of greenfly or red spider mite, and to treat affected plants immediately. Warm greenhouse

A 'weed' is just a plant growing in the 'wrong place', and in my garden, most weeds are more than welcome. There are some exceptions, of course - Japanese knotweed and Himalayan balsam to name two - but the more green leafy weeds in my plot

A few months back I mentioned that I was sowing some dwarf French beans, for an early crop in spring. I adore these juicy, tender beans and would much rather tuck in to a home-grown crop than imported varieties, shipped all the way from Egypt

far earlier than those sown in spring. Overwintering chillies can be a bit of a struggle in the UK though, unless you can offer them plenty of warmth and light (which I can't).Nevertheless, for the last three years I have overwintered chilli plants

to pests and diseases, and (most importantly) much quicker to crop.This is where they become exciting: aubergines are normally quite tricky to grow. They're best raised in a warm greenhouse, and if you sow seed later than March, you’re in danger of losing

.I love the way home-grown salads start off as a meagre collection of leaves in spring, then steadily grow as tomatoes, broad beans and other ingredients are ready to harvest. The watercress growing in my pond is always the first leaf crop I pick, followed