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. While I was there I thought I may as well do a couple of jobs, so I set about thinning out the fruit on the apple trees. This year my three apple trees have flowered and set fruit beautifully; the branches are laden with bunches of marble-sized fruits

that we can do for the trees. Around this time of year it's a good idea to thin the fruit again by hand to stop them bumping against each other - this can cause bruising, followed by rot, which can easily spread from one apple to its neighbour. Hence

to discover that it was riddled with thin plastic strips, rather like the stuff you find inside a music cassette. Useless. Far too much to pick out and I certainly wasn't prepared to incorporate it into my lovely (albeit rather heavy clay) Hampshire soil

weeding easier. Kept adequately moist, the seeds will soon germinate, and, after thinning, the plants grow like billy-o. Hardy annuals tend to be more drought tolerant than more highly priced bedding plants, and are pretty resilient. They make for a

by the time May comes along I am sick to the back teeth of ruddy yellow. We have been flooded by daffodils in every shape - short, tall, fat, thin etc - but every single one is yellow (yes, I know that some are creamy white but they are still tainted

to loving peonies. They have always been part of my gardening life. Our family garden in Guildford was on a slope near the Downs, on very thin free-draining soil over chalk. Peonies loved it; they didn't demand a thing from us and flourished in return

Lithobius (pictured above) and yet far fewer than the 50 or more pairs possessed by the long, thin Geophilomorpha group.They're fascinating animals and as soon as I saw it under the log I scooped it up to show to the kids. With all those legs it

for the best offers on peat-free compost and mulch with that.Then there's weed control. That thick mulch provides a perfect overcoat for borders to prevent annual weed seeds germinating, but it has to be a good 7cm or more deep to be effective. Too thin