The garden from scratch is coming along swimmingly these days. But as we’re moving house in August, I can’t help feeling a little bit sad when I walk around the beds, and duck past the six-foot kale plant. Though I am young and silly, I’m not silly enough to think a garden is something to [...]

It has been over a week since my ‘Queen of the Night’ tulips started teasing me by slowly undressing themselves. A rich, sultry purple crept through the buds, starting at the very tip like a lipstick stain and working its way through all the petals. And now the flowers are starting to unfurl. It’s fascinating, [...]

It has been a shamefully long time since I spent a couple of hours in the garden, but this weekend, I finally managed it. I have been hiding inside, cold and grumpy that the snow was halting my normal routines. And I was rather worried that when I stepped outside, I would find a great [...]

A few days before Christmas, I took three streps out of my front door, slipped on a sheet of ice, skidded all the way to the end of the path, and landed on my bottom. I was so angry with the hard frost we had had overnight that I huffed my way back inside and [...]

I don’t feel it’s coming to an end just yet. Maybe I’m hopelessly optimistic, but save for a gash of bloodred virginia creeper at the back of the garden, autumn hasn’t arrived in the flower borders. This is partly because I’ve used plants which are masters of deception: late-flowering verbenas, cosmos, cobaeas, passion flowers, tagetes [...]

When we started househunting last April, I never imagined we were going to have a garden. I envisaged growing a few lettuces in a window box, and maybe even some herbs on the kitchen windowsill. So when we found a house with a large fire escape and small balcony, I was thrilled that I would [...]

It feels a little confessional, unveiling the work I have been doing on this garden. I’ve had no outside help, no hard landscapers, no garden designers, nothing. Just me, some scribbles and lists on scraps of paper. And a husband who likes chopping up old pallets and reincarnating them as compost heaps and raised beds. [...]

Every evening after work, Toby and I inspect the garden. This really is the loveliest part of the day, especially if work has been a little bit rotten for either of us. Everything is so thoughtful by six o’clock, and there’s always something new, or which we haven’t noticed before. This evening it was the [...]

Lettuce ‘Little Gem’ seedlings under jam-jar cloches to protect them from the keen, cold balcony winds. I have been working away from home for two weeks, leaving the garden in my husband’s care. Last time I went away, a nasturtium fell ill on the balcony, and Toby emailed me a photo in case I could [...]

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 the most sun in the garden, interplanted with rocket [...]

Peas ready to be planted out The Garden from Scratch is starting to look more like a garden and less like a bare soil museum. Two of the veg beds are edged with garlic, which is looking very proud of itself at the moment, and the third is holding our Charlotte potatoes. We chitted these [...]

Alliums unzipping in the Garden from Scratch Perhaps it was the raspberry canes, lined up on the kitchen table, with ‘I Love You’ written on post-it notes. Or the handmade raised bed. Or a daily inspection of the garden at the end of work. Whatever the turning point, my husband has become a gardener, and [...]