This year’s Big Butterfly Count
Results from this year’s Big Butterfly Count are in – and the majority of butterflies are continuing to struggle with populations of most species falling, and some at their lowest numbers since the count began. Big Butterfly Count More than 36,000 people took part in the count this year, spotting about 390,000 butterflies over the three-week recording period in midsummer. [...]
Force Witloof chicory in the dark
Force Witloof chicory in the dark for one of the most delicious gourmet treats of the winter veg garden. Witloof chicory produces torpedo-shaped pale yellow ‘chicons’ or chicory hearts in just four to six weeks after harvest. They add crunch and sophistication sliced sparingly into winter salads, or if you want to tone down the bitterness even further, try braising [...]
Jobs for November 4
As winter starts to bite, it’s time to batten down the hatches and make sure the garden is shipshape ready for the bad weather to come. Here are some of the jobs you can be getting on with this month. General tasks: Wrap tender plants with hessian wrapped around a thick layer of straw to protect stems from frost damage. [...]
Plant blueberries in containers
Plant blueberries in containers ready for a bumper harvest of mouthwatering slatey-purple fruits next summer. Blueberries make fantastic ornamental shrubs as well as adding to the fruit harvest: as well as white blossom in spring and those gorgeous fat berries, the foliage turns vivid red each autumn before it falls. Plant Blueberries They do however need very special conditions to [...]
A record year for poinsettias
It’s been a record year for poinsettias, the nation’s favourite Christmas flower. Growers in the UK have been cossetting tens of thousands of seedlings ready for the big spike in sales in the festive season – and this year there are more new varieties than ever before, too. The showy Mexican natives with their huge brightly-coloured bracts are arriving in [...]
Give winter veg a little TLC
Give winter veg a little TLC as they go into the coldest months of the year to make sure your garden stays as productive in the off-season as it was in summer. Sprouts, kale, overwintering broad beans and peas, chard and winter lettuces all soldier on through the cold. But although they’ll survive without you, you’ll maximise your harvest by [...]