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when it comes to composing on a plate. Grated, sliced or chopped – preparing veg in different ways also makes a difference, but I digress.We all want colour in our gardens, so what about colour in our veg plots and allotments? Flowers play their part

to dig, spread a thick layer of compost, manure or composted green waste (like peat-free compost) over the soil surface. Worms will gradually work this in and the surface layer acts as a mulch to deter the germination of annual weeds.On the veg plot, I

There's a lot more to a great salad than lettuce. Apart from a nice assortment of colourful leaves and a slight crunch if they're fresh, I'm not convinced that lettuce adds much more to salad than bulk!I prefer to grow salad leaves with real flavour like rocket, watercress, and a...

Growing your own brings a host of benefits, like better freshness and saving money. One of the most important to me, is being able to choose specific crops that have the very best flavour.I think, what's the point in buying supermarket produce simply sold as 'sweetcorn', 'tomato'...

I don’t like waste, so digging dandelions from the lawn last week got me thinking about the value of weeds. Dandelions are hardly the master of disguise, revealing their position in the lawn with brilliant yellow flowers. I used a long-bladed, old knife to loosen the roots of eac...

When growing edible crops, it is essential to use your plot efficiently, especially if space is limited. It’s no good growing an unusual variety with a tiny yield if it takes up space that could be used for a more productive crop – particularly

’re aiming to show that home-grown crops are more nutritious than shop-bought produce, and that raising your own fruit and veg will save you money, too.To help you grow yourself healthy, we’ve prepared a downloadable starter pack, and a choice of five growing

are growing bigger by the day, and I don't want to plant out only to find a late frost damages them.Our Gardeners' World magazine campaign to help you Grow Yourself Healthy moves on apace too, and my own plot has been delivering regular pickings of rhubarb

that the Latin name for watercress is Nasturtium officinale.So, what other edible flowers add colour to my summer salads? Well, pot marigold or calendula petals look lovely. Orange varieties self-seed on my veg plot, and one or two flowers provide sufficient

... round shrubs, roses and flowers, along the base of the hedge, around fruit trees and bushes, and over the veg plot. Beans get a good, deep mulch of compost to help conserve soil moisture, too, but it's not just water retention that mulching is good for