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. […]
In a few weeks, many greenhouse owners will be buying and planting tomato seeds, and as always, they will be confronted with a bewildering array of varieties to choose from. They can buy hybrid or heirloom tomatoes, determinate or indeterminate ones, and these come in a vast array of sizes, colors, designated uses, and methods […]
I don’t know about you, but recently I have been feeling befuddled, not knowing what to turn to next to keep from sinking into the well of ennui. I sure do miss knocking around with friends and the freedom for a bit of rack-slapping-at-will, because you never know what sort of bargains you’ll find unless […]
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 […]
In times of chaos, gaining control over even one tiny part of your life can be a positive experience. And organizing your garden shed or greenhouse is a great place to start. Organization is about efficiency. Can you find it when you need it? There’s a lot of advice out there, but here are some […]
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 […]
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 […]
A glasshouse gem often seen on a kitchen window sill is the Hot-water plant with its long flowering display of pastel trumpet blooms. Related to Gloxinias several dozen species were introduced from Central America in the late 18C early 19C. These were tropical plants requiring hot house conditions and were soon hybridised to be more […]
It is time to deck my halls and I have found myself foraging in the greenhouse for materials. Of course there are a couple of rules to the making of a wreath, and one of those is that the majority of it must be made of evergreens, and you wont find any of those in […]
