February Fill Dyke has certainly lived up to its name this year! It’s traditionally one of the wetter months, averaging between 50mm and 100mm of rainfall, up to three inches in old money.  This year I know that we’ve had far more, because the accurate Met Office rain gauge my husband so thoughtfully gave me […]

There’s something very magical about plants that brave the winter weather and flower when everything else in the garden is slumbering. The nodding heads of snowdrops are a delight to the eye when everything else in the garden can seem slow to appear. This spring, the fair maids of February have appeared earlier than usual […]

I spotted them on a grey February morning on my way down to the greenhouse: the first tiny, rounded mint leaves pushing up in one of my pots. Nothing dramatic — just a hint of green, barely the size of my fingernail — but enough to stop me in my tracks. Mint is waking. February […]

My greenhouse wasn’t cleaned last year due to my ongoing ill health but my wife, Gill and great friend, Father Hugh Flower a Kew trained, motor cycle riding Catholic priest have penciled in a date to do this for me. Follow the more detailed instructions in September 2025 and previous diaries but choose a sunny […]

Dress your greenhouse with lush foliage usable for salad or spinach, for little effort, and get a small tuber crop for free. Sound too good to be true? Yet Oca, Oxalis tuberosa, is very popular all over its native South America and Mexico. True it really does like more sunshine than available in the UK, […]

Last month I looked at the highly acidic pH results of my garden soil test, and this month I’ll say more about what else I’ve learned from that testing. One lesson is that I made a big mistake by dumping a trailer load of fresh horse manure onto my garden beds, partly because my compost […]

The smallest earth-friendly actions and choices in our gardens and greenhouses can build to make global waves. Garden dreaming – whether it’s by day or by night – is blissfully unavoidable, but sometimes dreams come to us back to front, the wrong way around. Recently, I night-dreamt that I was inside my greenhouse, early spring […]

You might think of Simon Cowell when I mention the X Factor, but I’m talking about hybrids that arise when two plants hybridise. Usually, it’s the bees that do all the work. They travel between flowers searching for nectar for energy and protein-rich pollen for breeding. As they go, they accidentally transfer pollen from one […]

This year start keeping notes about your garden. A garden journal is such a useful tool, says Jean Vernon. I spend most of my working time writing, so you might be surprised that I’m not that good at journaling. And yet there are so many times every year that I wish I’d kept better notes […]

January weather presses close to the greenhouse, with frost on the panes and the quiet threat of colder nights yet to come. Outside, the garden is holding its breath. Frost feathers the edges of leaves, the soil rings hard underfoot, and the light has that pale, slanted quality that belongs only to midwinter. This is […]

After the long spell of warm weather last autumn, the first few months of this year are set to be cold, with snow in some areas. Protect plants in unheated greenhouses with fleece, removing the cover during warmer days. 70g fleece, provides protection to around -5C, 30g fleece protects plants to about -3°C and standard […]

You can grow a most beautiful plant in your greenhouse or conservatory that’s so valuable just a tiny dried piece was said to be worth more than its weight in Gold. This, The Saffron Crocus, has from Ancient times been revered as flavouring, colouring and medicine. (With astronomic rises in Gold prices this no longer […]