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 domesticate it are always a disappointment. When I used to rush around London replanting window boxes we often used heathers for a bit of winter colour - along with those rather ghastly Solanum (the ones with orange berries). Although they looked sort of

herbs, lettuce, tomatoes and climbing beans, which I eat every day, just a few paces away. The most convenient way is to grow them in raised beds, which are much easier to look after. I now have a happy mix of winter salads and wallflowers growing

like them in Salad Niçoise with fresh grilled tuna, or to accompany Hungarian goulash or any other robust winter stew. A bowl of steamed Mayan Twilights with a knob of melted butter also goes well with a roast dinner, intensifying the sweetness

home, although on occasions I've had two vying for my attention - or rather scrambling into newly dug soil in search of a tasty morsel or two.Robins are welcome companions to anyone gardening during winter, and always provide me with a moment to pause

on mainstream seed catalogues.In particular, much seed seems to be coming from Poland and the Czech Republic. While their summers can be hotter than ours, their winters are much colder, so many of the varieties grown there are used to tough conditions

.5-10cm pots, until late May, then placed them on my patio in a large terracotta pot, using a peat-free, multi-purpose compost.To support the climbing stems I used silver birch stems saved from winter pruning, pushing them down into the pot to create a

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

toddled and told them exactly that. I wouldn't be turning the pile, I would cover it and leave it till the winter. In return I expected a truce and no more stings.The wasps and I both stuck to our side of the bargain, and - since wasps don't tend to nest

. capillipes and A. grosseri.Cornus florida: a dogwood, but a long way from the red- and green-stemmed varieties we plant for a splash of winter colour. This one is a stunning plant that has green flowers surrounded by white bracts. These look like petals

in the year because it will be unbearably bitter: it's the cold weather that actually softens the flavour and makes it palatable."The outer leaves serve as its winter jacket" says Paolo Arrigio of Seeds of Italy, "they act as a blanching mechanism