Category: Blog

How to Create a Cottage Garden

How to grow courgettes in the UK: one plant, a sunny spot, and regular picking is all it takes for a summer’s worth of homegrown veg.

Greenhouses vs polytunnels is one of those questions that gets asked a lot in UK gardening circles, and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on what you want to grow, how much space you have, and what you’re willing to spend. Greenhouses vs polytunnels is not simply a question of which is better…

How to grow peas in the UK is one of those topics that comes with a near-universal warning from experienced growers: once you’ve eaten a pea straight from the pod, still warm from the sun, you will never again be satisfied with anything from a supermarket bag. How to grow peas in the UK is…

How to improve clay soil is the question that occupies more British gardeners than almost any other. How to improve clay soil is not a quick fix — anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something — but it is absolutely achievable, and the results of getting it right are dramatic. Clay soil that has…

The Easiest Vegetables to Grow for UK Beginners — Start Here and You Won’t Be Disappointed The easiest vegetables to grow for UK beginners are not the ones that look most impressive on the seed packet. They’re the ones that germinate reliably in our climate, tolerate a bit of neglect, don’t need a perfectly prepared…

How to grow sweet peas in the UK: sow, support, and pick your way to months of scent and colour — the complete beginner’s guide.

Blight on tomatoes and potatoes is the most demoralising thing that can happen in a British kitchen garden. Blight on tomatoes and potatoes strikes fast — a healthy-looking crop on Monday, dark patches spreading across the leaves by Wednesday, and by the weekend the whole plant collapsing into a blackened, evil-smelling ruin. If you’ve experienced…

How to grow gooseberries in the UK is a question that’s being asked more often than it used to be — and for good reason. How to grow gooseberries in the UK is, once you get into it, one of the most straightforward and rewarding things you can do with a small patch of garden…

Garden paths are one of those features that make an immediate, visible difference to how a garden looks and works — and yet they’re often the last thing people get around to. Garden paths don’t just look good; they solve real problems. They stop you churning up a lawn every time you cross the garden.…

How to grow cosmos is one of the most satisfying questions in the whole of gardening, because the answer is so straightforward and the results are so disproportionately beautiful. How to grow cosmos successfully in the UK requires very little — some decent compost, a sunny spot, a bit of patience through May — and…

How to grow spinach and salad leaves year-round in the UK is one of the most useful things any kitchen gardener can learn. How to grow spinach and salad leaves year-round in the UK is entirely achievable — even without a greenhouse — and once you crack the rhythm of successive sowing, you’ll find yourself…