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to this the fact that the cider was often more potable than the water and if you freeze cider (easy enough in the snowy winters of the Midwest) then you end up with 60% proof applejack (or apple brandy).Since his death in about 1845 the legend of Johnny Appleseed

I have just got back from a thoroughly blissful week on the Isle of Colonsay. The more observant readers among you will have noticed that I have blogged about Colonsay in previous years: here are my 2007 and 2008 holiday blogs. This year the weather

to be done. Spring is a bit like a rollercoaster: you get very slowly winched up through the long days of winter until you teeter on the top. Then suddenly it is downhill rush as everything starts sprouting and growing and flowering and, unless you

Thinking back to the brown expanse that took centre stage in my garden during the summer drought, and how subsequent rainfall brought it back from the dead, I marvel at the resilience of grass.Well, the doubting Thomases among you may have thought

, lacewings and hoverflies shelter next winter.Even if I had a brown bin to put my tree in I wouldn't use it now. I try to deal with all my biodegradable rubbish at home and I've never thrown anything out that won't break down eventually. My garden is 4m

I've had a great gardening year. It's hard to imagine my garden now as it was a year ago - a building site, with a huge pile of sand at one end and 200 paving stones and builders' rubble at the other. Then there was an awful lot of mud as we

the garden there are birds eating as much as they possibly can to put on a bit of extra weight for the winter.Seems like a good way to spend the rather dead month of August. Pass the biscuits...

compost in the bin to feed all the hungry plants. And wait for that horrible business of 'winter' to be over with.PSTo grow pumpkins you need a sheltered, sunny position and rich, moisture-retentive soil. Sow two seeds 2.5cm deep in a 5cm pot in late