To see what’s grabbing our attention in the world of horticulture, gardening and greenhouses, take a look at our latest articles below.
You’ll find a wide range of topics here, with tips for growing flowers, vegetables and herbs, and seasonal to-do lists.
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A superbly nutritious greenhouse plant Okahijiki, Salsola komarovii, is one of the oldest Japanese vegetables. Native to saline maritime regions this translates as ‘seaweed on land’ and is distantly related to our Samphire and more closely to our native Prickly Saltwort, Salsola soda, both of which are rich in Elements needed for out nutrition. Salsola […]
I share a trait with the late Queen Elizabeth, only one you understand. Just like our late, and much-missed majesty, I religiously tune into the weather forecast. And just like her, I love it when Tomasz Schafernaker is in charge. It’s rumoured that the late Queen Elizabeth developed quite a crush on this softly spoken, […]
There’s a new Greenhouse in my town. It’s a Hartley, and its owner is Mary Maroney, who invited me to visit. So one lovely summer evening I did just that, enjoying a glass of wine in Mary’s equally lovely Greenhouse. When Mary was a young girl in grade school, she was asked to draw what […]
Early in the month, especially if it is warm and sunny, sow trays, pots or old growing bags with ‘cut and come again crops’ to harvest through autumn and into winter; think land cress, oriental salads, like pak choi, mizuna and mibuna greens plus lettuce, lamb’s lettuce, chicory and radish and imagine it is spring […]
It has been a long, slow and mostly pretty cool summer in the greenhouse. Social media loves to throw old triumphs from past years at us, and so I am fully aware of how smug I have been about summer tomatoes in other years, and how pitifully late my tomatoes are this year. It feels […]
As fall approaches, it’s time for a thorough cleaning, repainting, and upgrading of my greenhouse. One of the projects on my list this year is automating various systems. Given the large number and variety of plants in my greenhouse, maintaining the optimal environment there can be challenging. Automation can facilitate this process for watering, heating, […]
In a corner of England, long, long ago, a young woman with visions of the epic garden she was planting, sowed seeds of milk thistle, Silybum marianum. HUGE mistake! Little did I know (yes, moi) that the enchanting, fresh young foliage, shimmering with silvered veins in the Norfolk sunshine, would age to old boot leathers […]
After the heat and stress of the day, evening is a perfect time to enjoy our gardens. So, creating vignettes of what works best in the falling light is important. White flowers are touted for evening and moon gardens because other colors fade back, but the same is true for light-colored foliage, especially the silvers. […]
There’s one day of the year that fills me with terror and it’s our village fete! It’s always held on the first Saturday of August and I grow plants for the plant stall, but however many I manage I am riven with guilt. You see, I haven’t managed to make chocolate and coffee cakes for […]
Sow spring onions in modules in late August for planting outdoors in September, for harvesting next spring, ideally, they should be protected with cloches or fleece after transplanting outdoors. Germinate oriental vegetables like Pak Choi and mustard and salad rocket in modules for transplanting outdoors and overwintering under cloches or fleece. Begin removing tomato leaves […]
I have bought a brand new, long-hankered-after plant this summer that might just make my greenhouse a little less full to bursting this winter: a ‘semponium’. I have long loved Aeoniums – beautiful succulents the most well known of which is ‘Zwartkopf’, which has almost black rosettes of leaves on sinuous stems. I think I […]
Don’t get despondent if there are weeds on your patch. Most are wildflowers and have a vital role for our pollinators and insects. In my world there is no such thing as a weed. Weeds are wildflowers. Many of our wildflowers evolved side by side with their pollinators or other creatures that depend on them. […]
