Glorious Garden 
Lettuce is usually seen as one of the easiest crops to grow, which makes it especially annoying when the seedlings seem to vanish almost as soon as they appear. One day you can see a neat little row of fresh green shoots. The next day there are gaps everywhere. Sometimes the seedlings are gone completely. … Read more
Spinach is one of the most useful crops you can grow in a UK garden. It is quick, productive, and easy to pick a few leaves from at a time for salads, cooking, or mixed harvest baskets. That is exactly why it is so frustrating when it suddenly stops giving you soft leafy growth and … Read more
Cucumbers can be one of the most rewarding crops to grow, but they are also one of the easiest to lose early on. When they are happy, they grow quickly and look full of promise. When something goes wrong, the decline often starts before the plant has really had a chance to establish itself. Seeds … Read more
Spinach is one of the most useful vegetables you can grow in a UK garden. It is quick, practical, and well suited to British growing conditions for much of the year. If you want a crop that can give you regular harvests without needing a huge amount of space, spinach is a very good choice. … Read more
Courgettes are one of the most rewarding vegetables you can grow in a UK garden. Once they get going, they grow quickly, look productive, and can give you a very useful harvest from just one or two plants. That is one reason so many beginners want to grow them. They feel generous. But courgettes are … Read more
Cucumbers are one of the most rewarding vegetables to grow in the UK when they get the right start. They grow quickly, feel productive, and are one of those crops that make a garden seem generous once they get going. But they are not quite as forgiving as lettuce or peas. If the early conditions … Read more
Courgettes are usually seen as easy, productive vegetables, but the early stage can go wrong surprisingly quickly. Seeds fail to come up, seedlings collapse, stems rot, leaves stall, or young plants simply sit there doing very little. For beginners, this is frustrating because courgettes are often described as simple to grow. That is true later … Read more
Potatoes are one of the easiest and most rewarding crops to grow in a UK garden, but their early shoots are vulnerable to frost. This catches a lot of beginners out. You plant at the right time, the first green growth appears, and then one cold night leaves the tops blackened, limp, or collapsed. It … Read more
Leggy tomato seedlings are one of the most common problems UK gardeners run into in spring. You sow seeds with good intentions, the seedlings come up quickly, and at first everything looks promising. Then the stems begin stretching, the plants lean towards the light, and instead of strong compact growth you end up with thin, … Read more
Lettuce is one of the easiest vegetables to grow in the UK. It is quick, useful, and well suited to beginners. You do not need a big garden or a greenhouse, and it grows well in beds, raised planters, and containers. If you want a crop that starts giving something back fairly quickly, lettuce is … Read more