We can’t buy our way out of the plastic problem – but we can reuse, recycle and share our way toward a more sustainable gardening world. Is gardening’s contribution to our global plastic pollution crisis sorted? Have we – gardeners and the businesses that profit handsomely from us – collectively fixed it? Is concern over […]
The cold start to the year has left the greenhouse relatively empty of new inhabitants, as it should be, really, at this time of year. It has been very chilly, a proper winter, and there has even been snow on the roof of the greenhouse some days, but this is all to the good for […]
It’s the most exciting time of all in the garden, because everything’s responding to longer days and warmer temperatures. My Hartley greenhouse is a hive of activity because it’s full of seeds about to spring into life. It may be unheated, but it warms up brilliantly well on spring-like days and that encourages earlier germination. […]
Jean Vernon offers her seasonal thoughts on ways to use the garden to survive the ongoing pandemic The garden was a saviour to so many of us last year. It wasn’t just the place to connect with nature, for many of us it was a place to escape from the house, move away from the […]
With a warm glasshouse you can grow this succulent salad crop year round. Originally from India long ago this self seeding annual is now found wild, worldwide. Introduced to England in 1582 it was in Maine, in quantity, by 1605. And by 1819 it had spread across the entire Americas in such local abundance it […]
It’s a real joy to have a greenhouse where you can potter when the rain, snow and waterlogged ground make gardening outdoors impossible. Thankfully, there’s plenty to keep you busy in there and hey, it’s not long now until spring. If you lifted and stored your dahlias over winter, encourage them back into growth by […]
Our climate is getting inexorably wetter, but as gardeners we need to learn to think more like our plants. It’s time to start dancing in the rain. When my gardening dreams and I landed here 18 years ago, on what was a bracken-riddled bank, I had no inkling that I was about to embark on […]
I’m actually writing this on January 19th, a significant day in the gardening calendar. It’s the day when our part of the earth begins to warm up again. Scientists tell us that from that day onwards the ground starts to get warmer, due to the sun getting closer to our part of the Northern hemisphere. […]
There is a greenhouse dahlia trick that I am keen to try out this year, and that is taking cuttings to increase flowering. We all normally buy our dahlias as tubers, and quite right too: good, chunky tubers are very easy to grow, you just pop them into the ground or a pot and as […]
Helping pollinators is a bit of a buzz phrase at the moment, but even in the midst of winter you can find ways to use your greenhouse to help them. You might think that in the middle of winter there wasn’t much you can do to help pollinators, but you would be wrong. Our greenhouses […]
Surprisingly there are several tropical root-crop plants well suited to frost free or better warm glasshouses. Probably the best value are Colocasias as many of the same family are already valued glasshouse specimens. Sold in Ethnic shops and some supermarkets these are known as Cocoyams in Africa, Taro in the Far East, Dasheen or Eddoes […]
With the sudden popularity of gardening, particularly vegetable growing, it is important to put in your seed order early – I am sure that many of you have already done so. The sudden increase in demand last year meant that popular varieties sold out quickly and there was a long waiting time on the websites […]
