There can now be no pretence that anything else is going to ripen in the greenhouse this year. A greenhouse can do a lot but the clocks have changed, the dark is creeping in, and the weather has cooled, and we have to give up thinking that those final rays of low sunlight might turn […]
Okay, I was misled into getting seed for this greenhouse ‘delight’, from the advertisements I foolishly imagined the flavour would be delicious. From it’s parentage it looked promising; the Solanum family gives us many tasty fruits, so this ‘easy annual’ Lychee / Litchi Tomato, S. sisymbrifolium could be an excellent crop. Coming from Brazil this […]
At Hartley Botanic, we believe that growing edibles from heritage seeds is one of the biggest trends amongst Greenhouse owners this year. Interest in heritage, edible varieties, some of which can be traced back to as early as the 1600’s, has been largely driven by the rediscovery of their unbeatable flavours. Often tender crops, requiring […]
Clear autumn leaves from gutters as they start to fall. Prevent downpipes from clogging by putting a pan scourer in the hole at the top, then clearing the debris as it backs up, from time to time. Collect rainwater in a waterbutt, when it is full, water at the base of fences under the eaves […]
It’s bulb season. This will be a two-part column about how to enjoy growing bulbs inside a glasshouse. Most of this advice will also be useful for growing on a sunny windowsill. Next month I will talk about forcing other tender and hardy bulbs indoors. But this month, I’m talking about Amaryllis with Christian Curless, […]
Unlike the costly high-tech carbon capture and storage strategies being proposed to mitigate climate change, tree-planting is free, simple, people-powered – and proven. I’ve beaten the redwings to it. The crowd has skirted along the edge of the wood and descended on my neighbour’s rowans, where they’re now merrily stripping them of their dazzling orange […]
“If you can read a book, you can do anything.” Short of embroidering it on a cushion, that’s a mantra I’ve lived by since my best friend in high school wised me up. I’ve packed in a lot of reading since then, researching the history of garden design and landscaping for the books I’ve written, […]
A year or so ago, a friend was throwing out a dozen ten-foot-long, one inch-diameter, galvanized pipes. I said I would take them with the thought in mind of building an affordable hoop house. Having filled my 300-square-foot heated greenhouse with more than 200 plants, and with more plants than I intended in my unheated […]
Winter is knocking on the door once again and there’s lots to do in the garden in preparation. The trouble is you can never predict what winter will bring and I would like every gardener to be provided with their own personal crystal ball – particularly now that our climate’s so changeable. What will the […]
Whether you want to plant for wildlife or deter burglars, the humble bramble has many attributes I have a long and chequered history with the humble blackberry. As a child I lived on a crescent of houses and in the middle of the crescent was an allotment site, where we had a plot. We didn’t […]
It is annoying when one of your great greenhouse successes of the year is not one you planted… or even particularly wanted, but so it has proved this year. Call me a party pooper but I am not a big fan of a giant pumpkin. I love Hallowe’en and I love the pumpkin’s role in […]
So why on Earth would you want to grow this in your greenhouse? Well, because this is a living ‘pot pourri’. A South American relative of Asters it’s delightful though as the disparaging quote from Paxton’s Botanical Dictionary suggests it’s neither graceful, compact, neat nor colourful. Thus certainly not a centrepiece, nor a background foliage […]
