Early in the month it is time to check that the glasshouse is ready to accommodate your tender plants, so you are ready when temperatures drop. Pick your last tomatoes and ripen them on the windowsill. Blemish free fruit can be stored in a cool drawer, to be ripened in the fruit-bowl as needed during […]

I’m summer weary and tired of picking tomatoes, making jam in the evenings, watering and weeding! I’m waiting for the first frost, although last year we only had a couple and they came well after Christmas for it was the mildest winter ever in the cold, cold Cotswolds, in the wonderfully named village of Cold […]

I want to make good use of the greenhouse over winter and to that end I have decided to rescue some herbs from the slow autumn slump. Right now all of my herbs are looking pretty good, and it is easy to be fooled into imagining this will go on, particularly when the September days […]

Sow no harm: if you grow insect-attracting flowers from seed, you will reap nothing but delight. I love you, my dearest dahlias – I really do. And it’s on hot, comforting days like this, when we’re lulled by echoes of ebbing summer, that I adore you more than ever. Today you brought an airborne frenzy of […]

From mid-summer until November, rhododendrons and camellias are forming flower buds for next year’s display, so it’s essential that the compost or soil around them doesn’t dry out at any point, if it does they simply won’t form buds or will demonstrate their disapproval by shedding the ones that have already formed. Check your plants […]

Now that greenhouse tomatoes are growing well, remove the side shoots of ‘cordon’ varieties, as they appear, using your finger and thumb, this will create a single productive stem. Keep the compost constantly moist, particularly if you are using growing bags, as the compost dries out rapidly; twice a day is ideal, depending on the […]

I recently wrote that for a glasshouse watercress was the most nutritious crop you could grow, and that still stands. However the huge productive capacity under cover can be more efficiently harnessed to produce even more healthy nutrition. And a very succulent, delicious and tasty increase this is; from growing baby salad leaves. You see […]

Open the vents in your greenhouse on sunny December days, shutting them before temperatures drop early in the afternoon to retain the heat. Good air circulation is essential but chilling draughts should be avoided, so don’t leave the door open or open the vents too far. It is a matter of getting it just right! […]

June is an ideal time to sow fast maturing vegetables if your sowing season has been disrupted by late frosts and cold weather this spring.  Spring onions, early carrots and salads can be sown regularly until August, making the next sowing when the previous seedlings have germinated, so there is still plenty of time for […]

When you grow your own fruit, vegetables and greenhouse crops you fully understand the time and effort that is invested into every mouthful. The Grow Your Own fanatic is not going to waste a morsel; every tomato, bean and cucumber will be devoured with relish, or simply pickled, jammed or chutneyed, or just eaten fresh […]

Little by little the greenhouse plants that have been sewn, potted on and juggled about for the last couple of months are finding their way outside. First they have to look sturdy and healthy, and to have produced a few leaves, then they get a week on the back steps – a gentle sunny and […]