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blog to another, as they all have links that take you to yet another strand.One of the most prolific blogs is Vegplotting - the adventures of a very keen gardener and allotmenteer in Chippenham, Wiltshire. For even more hardcore vegetable growing try

that one of the most satisfying things in gardening is a well built, well maintained compost heap, but it is a bit much when people get smug about what is really just a pile of rotting vegetation. I do not claim to be an expert but what we make ends up

thinking. Even today it upsets the creationists.Another of Darwin’s works, a book not actually published until a year before his death in 1882, concerned the seemingly humble subject of earthworms. The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action

on the cuteness scale but that is not much use if you are trying to grow vegetables. (They also, if Alvin and the Chipmunks are to be believed, have really irritating voices). In the same bracket come groundhogs - who can have about five burrows, each one

, incidentally, is a plant that takes two years to flower from seed: it puts on leaves, stems and roots during the first year and then flowers the following summer. A lot of vegetables are actually biennial (for example beetroot, sprouts, carrots and celery

of Colonsay, Colonsay House Gardens. It is not the only garden: there are a few smaller gardens on the island - including what must be one of the most spectacularly sited vegetable gardens in the world: they have used stones set on end as fencing (here is a

jam) and watched the ladybirds stumbling around like the bride's uncle at a wedding reception. I also wandered off to the vegetable garden and sneered at the caterpillars on the kale leaves.And now, as I sit here in my office there is a large and noisy

for free foraging, a vegetable garden, an olive grove (a little optimistic) and even a hot house full of tropical fruit. For the thirsty there is a hop garden, a cider orchard and a vineyard.3. Roses: none of the other RHS Shows have quite as many roses

tufted economy blend.Last year was not a good year as there was too much rain and general bleariness for anything much to thrive. Vegetables drowned and fruit never really came to much, roses were battered by showers and meadows were flattened. Thank

of our vegetables they consume, I am pretty sure that they would taste revolting.