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Protecting brassicas

April 25, 2011
by F&F
No Responses.
Fed up of caterpillars munching their way through your tasty purple-sprouting broccoli? Make sure you're protected.
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Tomatoes and tagetes

September 6, 2010
by F&F
Role, , ,
5 Comments
Here's a clever and good-looking example of companion planting tomatoes, tagetes, beets and onions at RHS Wisley. Find out why companion planting is so important in a stylish organic garden.
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Fight the blight

July 20, 2010
by F&F
4 Comments
Image by Dwight Sipler Ask most vegetable growers what their worst, most dreaded plant problem is, and they snap ‘blight’ right back at you. Late tomato blight is one of those very miserable diseases that sneaks right up at you, often as
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Repelling aphids with lemon juice

June 20, 2010
by F&F
1 Comment
I love using home-spun potions in my garden. They’re cheaper than sprays from the garden centre, and they are normally far better for the ecosystem in the garden as well. This cheeky little lemon spray will send the pesky aphids in your garden
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Garden soldiers

July 21, 2009
by F&F
No Responses.
Not everything in the garden is happy with this rain. I’m sure we have had more than our fair share of Smith Periods (the humid conditions which bring dreaded tomato and potato blight), and the aubergine was looking so grumpy I brought it inside. But
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Blackfly in nasturtium romp shocker!

June 24, 2009
by F&F
No Responses.
It was inevitable; it was in fact part of the deal, but still, it was hard letting go. Today I dug the billowing nasturtiums up from the front of the raised bed and tipped them onto the compost heap. All through May and June they have been rambling h
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Catching caterpillars

June 7, 2009
by F&F
No Responses.
This evening, as I poked around in the garden, admiring the smell of freshly washed soil and the sight of rows of carrot and onion seedlings pushing their way upwards, I found I had a number of little visitors.
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Hostas

May 24, 2009
by F&F
Role
No Responses.
Hostas are fantastic link plants within a garden, with lush, rubbery leaves sandwiching nicely between clumps of blooming perennials. But they also put up a splendid display themselves when planted en masse. The contrast between these sea-blue and li
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Autumn (and winter, and a bit of spring) King carrots.

April 29, 2009
by F&F
6 Comments
Hoorah. The first carrots from the Garden from Scratch. I sowed these Autumn King II in September as an experiment to see if they would make it through the winter. Which they did. They have been growing in a deep container on the balcony, which gets
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Slugging it out

April 20, 2009
by F&F
5 Comments
  I met this slug as he journeyed across my compost heap. Unfortunately, it was his last journey, as I am one of the awful, brutal gardeners who keeps a pair of ‘slug-cutting’ scissors in their coat pocket. I’m sorry, Mr Slug, but t
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Edible playgrounds

February 25, 2009
by F&F
No Responses.
Meet Tigger, the Garden from Scratch’s resident moggy. He’s an enormous RSPCA rescue cat who joined me on my 15th birthday, and has been jumping on to my bed at impossible hours of the morning ever since. Tigger is affectionate, demanding
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