It’s a funny thing about aubergines, most dids don’t like them, but suddenly when one becomes an adult, they’re considered quite tasty. Aubergine, also called eggplant, or brinjal belongs to the night shade family. The fruit is botanically classified as a berry, and contains numerous small, soft seeds. It originates in India, but by now [...]

When Toby was a child, he used to ramble over the South Downs with his siblings and pick lallies. Lallies are berries, any berry really, which you can pop in your mouth when no-one is looking. As a child, I used to sneak up to our vegetable patch and pick bucketfulls of lallies from the [...]

What do you do when you have a week off? Today was my first day off in a while, and I spent it shovelling poo. After Toby built our compost heap from crates last year, we haven’t had to buy in any soil for the garden. But a hot-pile compost heap requires a certain amount [...]

Generally, a bolting lettuce is a bad thing. The leaves are so sour you can’t eat them, and all your efforts in watering the plant and protecting it from slugs are entirely wasted. But some people grow lettuces just to see them bolt. Why? ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get 10% off on flower, [...]

Last weekend, I sat myself down and worked very hard to harvest a great deal of garden produce. But this harvest was not an edible one. It is seed-saving time, and I have got plenty of work ahead if I want to increase my stocks for next year. ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get [...]

Remember how I nearly wept as I pruned my Sedum spectabile a few months ago? Well, it is in flower now, and my goodness, that hard cutting back was worth it. Not only has the plant avoided a doughnut-shaped belly-flop outwards, but it is covered in more flowers than it would have been if I [...]

How do you know when sweetcorn is ready to harvest? First, the peroxide blonde tops of the cobs age to matted brown. Then, when you pull back the leaves swaddling the corn, stick one nail into seed. If a little clear liquid runs out, it isn’t ready yet. But if the liquid is milky, then [...]

Have you ever arrived home from work to find your garden looking a little grumpy? Ever envied the lives of those gardeners who don’t have trains to catch, intrays to empty, or late nights in the office? Chances are most people reading this blog don’t have time to gaze at their gourds all day long: [...]

September has continued the theme of strong winds and rain. Yet another cardoon has been battered to the ground. Work on the plot has been frequently interrupted by sudden heavy rain but despite that that we have managed to spend some time on the plot. We have sown winter salad crops, (spring onion – Guardsman [...]

Matt Williams is a marvellous cook. I know this because I spent a year watching his wife happily eating the extraordinarily delicious soups he had cooked her for lunch at work. His recipes are worth catching hold of, if you ever get the chance. And he’s been so kind to share his superb green tomato [...]

Another one of my late summer staples is Verbena bonariensis. It is a perfect plant for a small garden as it takes up very little room in the border while creating a dreamy purple cloud of flowers when planted en masse. It also self-seeds very enthusiastically, which is very obliging. The only problem is, it [...]

This week’s talking point has to be our largest tomato which weighed in at almost 1.1kg or 2½lbs. It’s another Brandywine beefsteak variety (or maybe buffalo steak in this case) which is known to produce huge fruits although I haven’t come across one as large as this in my trawling of the Internet. General information [...]