See this? This strange, curly-wurly little thing coming out of my garlic plants is a scape. And scapes, although they may sound a little like an unfortunate physical condition, are good news for your garlic. As you can see, the scape, or flowerbud, is embarking on a little loop-the-loop. And once it has finished its [...]

Kingsbrae Garden in New Brunswick, Canada, was once destined to become a dog-training facility. As much as we love dogs at F&F, we’re glad that never came to fruition, as the garden is stunning. A bold planting scheme, running from serene Liatris and Monardas to cheerful poppies and knapweed, drifts through the organic public garden, [...]

What could be better than arriving home after a long stifling day in London to a bowl of sweet, juicy cherries? We harvested these from the cherry tree hanging into our garden, climbing among the branches to pick the fruit. This was fun, but if you want to grow cherries seriously for fruit, you should [...]

Great excitement this week as the kiwi flowered for the first time. Admittedly there were only five buds on the two plants, and so far only three had actually opened. At least it is a step in the right direction.. ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get 10% off on flower, vegetable and fruit seeds [...]

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 happily over the wooden frame and across [...]

If you, or someone you live with, has a penchant for golden syrup, or anything else that comes in quite such a beautiful tin, save it once greedy fingers have scooped out the contents, and punch a hole in the bottom. The resulting pot is perfect for salads and, as shown here, tomato sideshoot cuttings. [...]

My tomatoes are starting to have babies. Little green fruits are appearing on the stems as the plant continues to put out more trusses, and shimmy further and further up its cane. In a previous entry about tomatoes, I mentioned that as soon as the first truss appeared (trusses are the flower stems), you should [...]

Broad beans, also known as fava beans are an amazingly healthy bean, very tasty, and easy to grow. They are one of the early crops to plant out, as they don’t mind cooler weather, and in fact you’ll have fewer aphids if you do start them early. Broad beans have special enzymes that help with [...]

The highlight of this week just has to be the strawberries. We have gorged ourselves on them and even given some away. We have managed to pick about 12 punnets - the cartons that the supermarkets use for peaches etc. It is just such a shame that the berries don’t freeze well so there is [...]

Yesterday the rain came, with fat, warm drops. I love summer rain, so I decided to have a poke around in the garden and allow the downpour to soak me through. And then I decided to harvest the potatoes. ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get 10% off on flower, vegetable and fruit seeds and [...]

One of the loveliest things about growing your own veg is drifting down to your garden with a bowl and picking a fat crop of juicy salad leaves every morning. There are few greater supermarket rip-offs than those bags of salad leaves: insipid, watery things which last for all of a day, and all for [...]

Believe it or not, this wildflower meadow is slap-bang in the centre of Southampton. It seems the council have seeded it in a rather dull bed of ornamental grasses. This new municipal planting seems to be growing in popularity: last year we found a meadow blooming in Broadmead, Bristol. It is such a refreshing sight: [...]