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into the compost? The answer is partly to do with unclean water, such as that from a water butt. By the time rain has washed over the roof, along the guttering and down the drainpipe, and then sat gently festering in the butt, it has often accumulated and ‘brewed

Even though we've not had a great summer so far in Hampshire, the leaves of many of my garden plants are suffering from scorch. It's not just my own plants – I've seen leaf scorch on quite a few plants and I answered many questions on the subject

The wind lately has been something else! I can't remember the last time we had such extraordinarily strong winds hit the garden. It's certainly been fantastic for drying my washing, but the garden is getting the sharp side of these unusually strong

failed again).The temperature has been so high during the day that I’ve had to remove the lids from two propagators, to prevent them from ‘boiling’ the seedlings. I keep a couple of watering cans close by, as the plants are guzzling water

I know that gardeners in other areas of the country have been blessed with proper, sustained downpours, but no such luck here. My only experience of rain in recent weeks was during a (very enjoyable) visit to Garden Show Ireland at Hillsborough

Yesterday at a Gardeners' Question Time recording it was amazing to hear that Eric's Cumbrian plot had only had 5cm of snow. Not so here in Hampshire. The snow is 45-60cm deep and the icicles more than 1m long!What have I been up to during the snowy

At last, we've had rain, but I'm starting to wonder if I have rain-inducing powers. Like many gardeners, I try to avoid watering the garden, but recently I had to resort to the hose. It was so dry even the nettles were wilting! But of course, after

soggy mess.One advantage of the rainfall has been the success of the biological control I applied to some areas of my kitchen garden. Nematodes are added to water and applied to the soil in spring. They thrive in warm, moist soil and when they come

was rather amused to find me wearing a very large woolly jumper, two chunky scarves and a hot water bottle strapped around my middle (I've been suffering from an extremely sore lower back, as well as from the cold, and this really does help to relieve

. The recent wet weather has left just about everything in my garden covered in water, and as temperatures have been mild, algae has spread.The soil here is clay, which I've spent many years improving with garden compost, manure and leaf mould. Algae and some