Open greenhouse vents for as long as possible on mild sunny days, shutting them before temperatures drop early in the afternoon. The combination of high temperatures and low light makes leaves and stems soft, spindly and prone to grey mould which spreads rapidly in cool, damp conditions. Though good air circulation is vital, avoid chilling […]
An inspiring new book on the wonder of woodchips is packed with must-try ideas that let you play a part in climate cooling – even while heating your greenhouse. Gardening books abound, but every once in a while one appears that’s clearly been conceived in earth-friendly gardening heaven. These are the books you feel were […]
I love to garden throughout the year and kneeling down, with a trowel in my hand, seems to get me a direct line to God and I’m not too fussy about which one it is either. I can solve my problems, my friends’ problems and my family’s problems when I’m weeding. The only time my […]
The steppe-like conditions in my garden – with no rain for the past few months but what seems like an eternity – puts trees and much else in the garden at risk from what will probably be a brute of a winter, if one believes the old adage that many berries signal a lean, mean […]
Have You Checked Your Soil pH Lately? You probably don’t think much about it, but the pH of your soil – its acidity or alkalinity – can matter greatly to how well your plants grow. And what many gardeners don’t realize is that they can be inadvertently altering soil pH every time they water their […]
Jean Vernon explores the magic of the humble seed. There’s magic in our gardens that is often undervalued. It’s something that gardeners, farmers and growers across the world are mesmerized by. That a tiny speck of seed can grow into a fully formed plant. It never fails to amaze me and is just one of […]
How do you turn a stranger into a friend? You reach out and create a relationship, of course. And if those strangers are tropical plants? Marianne Willburn, author of the book, Tropical Plants and How to Love Them, has light-heartedly and cleverly introduced tropicals by categorizing these plants into five recognizable relationship stages—from summer flings […]
The greenhouse is emptying now, with all of the tender vegetables of summer and autumn well over. The inhabitants from here to spring will be a very different set of plants, not those that need as close to Mediterranean heat as we can give them in this country, as is the case with the aubergines, […]
It’s still not too late to sow batches of winter salads every week or two in an unheated greenhouse. Growing them in trays, pots, old growing bags or borders as ‘cut and come again’ crops to harvest through autumn and into winter. Try hardy salads like land cress, radish, carrots for leaves, any of the […]
With the world’s focus on ways to cool the global ‘greenhouse’, the onus is on all of us not to add to the problem. Earth-friendly under-cover gardening can make our greenhouses part of the solution. Being on life support is serious stuff. It means we’re so poorly that we need extra, emergency help to actually […]
Last month I talked about the ripening of my tomatoes and aubergines in the greenhouse, and now it is the turn of the chillies. The tomatoes and aubergines are all but over now: we harvested the last few aubergines for one big glorious end of season bowl of baba ganoush, which will be eaten with […]
What does planning ahead for work in the autumn garden mean for you? Outdoors or in a conservatory does it amount to a quick tidy up? A bit of dead-heading, leaf-raking and winterizing the irrigation system? At the Clarke household, the Head Gardener (me) wracks her brain and wrecks her back to improvise and execute […]
