With the Met Office promising a heatwave for the coming week, the thoughts of many gardeners will naturally turn to irrigation and how best to help our plants through the hot days. Here in Irel ... Read more

Why Plant Bare Root Trees?Everyone seems to be talking about trees these days and with good reason. They are one of the single most effective ways to take carbon out of the atmosphere and help slow g ... Read more

I decided to bite the bullet at the weekend and tackle my old Landrover which has been sitting in the shed since the gearbox packed up a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't looking forward to getting oi ... Read more

Getting Started   Unlike other countries in the world we just don't get the weather to grow chilli peppers successfully outdoors. It is possible but the results and cropping levels aren ... Read more

As my garden moves into Autumn and I harvest and clear spent crops from my beds, I am looking at an increasing number of empty spaces. Some of these gaps will be filled with autumn or overwinte ... Read more

Spring cabbage is delicious and tender and will be one of the first proper crops you can enjoy in the Spring. Remember Spring cabbage needs to be planted the previous Autumn to over winter and pro ... Read more

Lettuce is a favorite in the garden because it is relatively easy to grow, is one of the first crops that can be planted, and is one of the first crops to yield in the spring. It doesn’t take ... Read more

Not too chilly for growing chillies! You don't need me to tell you that we are having a wet and windy February. So far we have dealt with high winds and heavy rain and, if the forecast is correct, ... Read more

While I am not a fan of of winter I do enjoy preparing for it. There is great satisfaction in harvesting and storing crops in October, protecting beds from heavy rain and generally put ... Read more

Cabbage is a demanding plant both is the amount of nutrients it needs and the space it takes up in the garden. It really is easy to grow if you feed your soil properly to begin with and take preca ... Read more

Although it is still too early to sow anything I thought I would run through some seed sowing notes this week for any new growers who are unsure when or how to start growing. It will also likely b ... Read more

Cabbage is a demanding plant from the amount of nutrients it needs and the space it takes up in the garden. It really is easy to grow if you feed your soil properly to begin with and take precauti ... Read more

Blueberries are high in antioxidants so widely regarded as a 'Superfruit' (whatever that is) but taking their health benefits apart they are also exceptionally tasty so well worth growing yourself. A ... Read more

While I do spend plenty of happy time in the garden in January there really isn't a whole lot you can do other than preparing things for the season ahead. In may cases I will be tempted to start a fe ... Read more

When we move towards the end of July and into early August, it can be easy to think that the time for sowing new crops has passed. To be fair that's true for most things, with the garden no ... Read more

Frost is the first thought when considering where to grow strawberry plants in your garden. They are very hardy plants during the winter but are not so hardy when they burst into life in spring. S ... Read more

Be Realistic! I'd give the same advice to any new gardener - to start small with easy to grow crops. A school vegetable garden also has the holidays to take into account so unless you have inter ... Read more

If you're staring off your vegetable plants in early Spring you'll need to give them some heat as temperatures will be too cold for the seeds to germinate. If you're growing in a greenhouse or pol ... Read more

A greenhouse can open up possibilities for you and extend your growing season. It mainly does this by providing enhanced levels of heat and light: an effect brought about by the inherent design of ... Read more

Pumpkins have a special appeal for both adults and children, especially at Halloween. The carved pumpkin outside the front door - or being carried house to house as a lantern - is an establishe ... Read more

My weekend work for the last 2 weeks has been building our new fruit cage video location. The plan, as I think I mentioned in a previous mail, is to film a new set of videos showing how to plant, pru ... Read more

The cauliflower is not the easiest of the brassica family to grow but a large white cauliflower with tight white curds is a thing of beauty and producing one a source of much satisfaction. Variety ... Read more

I quite like February, it's a bit of a renegade. Not only does it have a different number of days than any other month but it also reserves the right to change that date on a leap year. It is the mon ... Read more

We had a number of questions recently on polytunnel growing: particularly whether polytunnels are worth the investment and whether it is true that they enable year-round growing, so I figured I ... Read more