Tips on propagating vegetable seedlings We are nearly at that time again when we sow some tiny seeds in compost and see them magically transform into large tomato plants bearing 15-20 kg of frui ... Read more

This article covers pruning old and neglected fruit trees, if you would like to learn how to prune younger or freshly planted trees please read ' An introduction to pruning apple trees'. I get ... Read more

After a wet week last week, the weekend looked promising (well, Sunday at least) to get some work done in the garden and start preparing it for the Winter. As you may know, my garden is in an area of ... Read more

Rosemary is one of the most decorative herbs and is well worth growing for its appearance alone. Dependent on the variety, it has small, profuse flowers appearing in late spring which range from da ... Read more

As regular readers will know, I had to take down over half of my trees due to ash die back disease. Sadly, that has left my little patch of land looking very different and in need of some r ... Read more

Regular watering and sensible irrigation is essential to the development and healthy growth of any plant. Water is drawn from the root of the plant and transported through its capilla ... Read more

This week I thought we would take a break from vegetables and look instead at the flowering garden. Some of you may remember my ambitious plans earlier in the year to create a number of flo ... Read more

Why I Grow in Raised Vegetable Beds I guess the best place to get started is why should I grow in Raised Vegetable Beds in the first place? For me, growing in raised beds was my onl ... Read more

Water is one of the most crucial building blocks for plant growth. The rest of the ‘Big 5’ consists of oxygen, light, favourable temperature and nutrients. Interestingly enough for the purpose of thi ... Read more

Most people (including me until relatively recently) think of a small, round, pink variety when picturing a radish, usually either sliced or added whole to a garden salad. You may also remember the h ... Read more

If you have read any of our previous blog posts you will know that we are rather spoiled at Quickcrop with our large rural gardens with plenty of room to grow in. If you have a smaller urban garde ... Read more

We always get loads of calls in August / September looking for overwintering vegetable seedlings. Of course I'm delighted as we do a great range of vegetables for autumn planting from our online n ... Read more

I thought we'd start the garden update with a couple of photos taken last evening while having a walk on a local bog. The photo above is of Eriophorum angustifolium or bog cotton (oddly, th ... Read more

The unique selling point of the Vegepod is that it combines some of the benefits of raised bed gardening with those of growing under cover or in a container. You can create a microclimate ... Read more

Plant protection is the practice of managing weather, weeds, pests and diseases that damage or inhibit the growth of fruit, vegetable and other horticultural crops. Proper crop protection is im ... Read more

As we are probably all itching to begin the growing season, I thought it might be helpful to talk about starting seeds off early and how to give the best chance of success. As we need extra warmth ... Read more

Whether learning by experience or by reading up, you’ll soon come to realise that (for the most part) there are no hard and fast rules for gardening. This applies to irrigation as well. Sure, ther ... Read more

The end of March and early April is approaching prime seed sowing time if we are starting indoors in seed trays or pots (for planting outside in May). I think we covered timing already but, a ... Read more

Can potato plants with late blight be composted? If care is taken the answer is yes. Blight spores can only survive on living plant tissue, once the foliage has been cut it will die and so will ... 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

You don’t need a massive garden to grow delicious vegetables. Many vegetables can be grown in planters, buckets or bags with great results. Here is our top ten list of trouble-free container frien ... Read more

In a perfect world, there’d be plenty of room for gardens, greenery and foliage to exist in harmony with us as we go about our day-to-day lives. However, urbanisation and increasing levels of populat ... Read more

Those of you who are subscribed to our newsletter may already be familiar with this A-Z guide that I've been gradually putting together. It's easy to find sowing times for vegetables but sometimes ... Read more

How To Build Raised Beds This article deals with how to build raised garden beds, what is the best size to make them and what is the best material to use. We will also look at preparing the soi ... Read more