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.Houseleeks are most valued for their distinctive rosettes of succulent, spirally patterned foliage, although they also bear attractive flowers from spring to summer. Each rosette is a separate plant, and is monocarpic - it flowers once then dies, but is soon replaced

-trained plum. It forms quite a thicket, with stems growing 3-4m long by the end of summer, so it does need a bit of space. Tiny white flowers will form on the stems that developed into fat green pods. Picked small I throw the whole pod into stir fries, but when

vegetables also make good additions to the border - asparagus has gorgeous ferny foliage and artichoke flowers are bee magnets(Jerusalem artichokes are, however, excluded due to the possibility of indelicate post-prandial thunderings).Less obvious

again, hoping 'Emir' lives up to its catalogue description (though to be on the safe side I'm keeping two melon plants a little snugger in my greenhouse). So far, so good, and flowers are developing well. Now all I need is to cross-pollinate them

extraordinarily good the pictures are nowadays - it seems so strange now to have gardening books which only have black and white illustrations!Among my collection are a few which, I must admit, were given to me and I've never read. Most notably a very intense

see your face in, and you bite through it into pure snow-white flesh. They're always crisp, sweet, and have a really excellent flavour. And they do store well, so my bumper crop will certainly keep the doctor away for a few months.We're lucky

tree flowering at the same time. With cookers like Bramley, you actually need two other apple varieties to get the best results (one variety to pollinate the Bramley and the other to pollinate the pollinator). Even with two pollinating varieties close

Today we got our first proper frost. The roofs of the buildings are dusted with white, the grass is crispy underfoot and the seedheads are glittering with ice - at least they are when the sun breaks through the lowering cloud. All very lovely

clunking clockwork model of a beetle, it'll be feeding on the white or yellow bedstraws, drifts of which stain the surrounding fields.Sunday 8th Lizards are everywhere sunning themselves on walls and steps; everywhere we walk they are disturbed from