Share this Facebook Pinterest WhatsApp X Email Is it too late to plant peas? In the UK it depends on where you are and which month you have reached, but the short answer for late summer is: it is borderline, and often worth a gamble. A quick early variety sown in early August can still … Read more
Share this Facebook Pinterest WhatsApp X Email Is it too late to plant vegetables? In the UK, the honest answer for early August is: for some crops yes, but for plenty of others there is still time, and a surprising amount can go in now for an autumn or even winter harvest. The crops whose … Read more
Share this Facebook Pinterest WhatsApp X Email How to ripen green tomatoes, the quickest method is to pick them and put them in a bowl or paper bag with a ripe banana, somewhere warm and dark, and they will turn red in a week or two. On the plant, you speed things up by removing … Read more
Greenfly and blackfly are both aphids, sap-sucking insects that cluster on the softest new growth of roses, broad beans, tomatoes and almost anything else, weakening plants and coating leaves in sticky honeydew. The good news is that you almost never need to buy anything. Squash the colonies between finger and thumb, blast the rest off … Read more
Cabbage white caterpillars are the green and yellow-black caterpillars that strip cabbages, kale, broccoli and other brassicas to bare stalks in high summer, hatched from eggs laid by the two cabbage white butterflies. The only reliable way to stop them is to keep the butterflies off the plants in the first place, with fine insect … Read more
In September you can sow spinach, winter lettuce, rocket, oriental leaves, spring onions, radishes, chard, winter-hardy spring cabbage and green manures, and plant out garlic, autumn onion sets and overwintering broad beans towards the end of the month. It is also the best month of the year to sow a new lawn or repair a … Read more
Potato blight is a fast-moving disease that turns potato foliage brown and collapsing within days, usually in the warm, humid weather of July and August, and it can rot the tubers underground afterwards. The single most useful thing to know is this: the moment you see it, cut all the foliage off at ground level … Read more
The best bee friendly plants for UK gardens are single, open-faced flowers that bloom across as much of the year as possible: lavender, borage, catmint, foxgloves and hardy geraniums for the main season, hellebores and pulmonaria for the hungry early spring, and ivy and sedum for autumn. Skip the frilly double-flowered varieties, because they carry … Read more
Tomato blight is a fast-moving disease that turns healthy plants into brown, collapsing mush within days, usually striking outdoor tomatoes in the warm, wet weather of July and August. It is the same disease that hits potatoes, which are often the first crop to show it. The hard truth first, because it is the thing … Read more
The best place to buy seeds in the UK depends on what you are buying. For sheer range and reliability, Thompson and Morgan is the company I order from most. For rock-bottom prices on everyday vegetables, no-frills online packet sellers and the seasonal seed racks in discount stores beat everyone. For unusual varieties worth paying … Read more