The other day I did something I had been putting off for months: I tidied my seed box. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m not one of those women who has a perfectly organised seed box coded by month, colour of flower or type of veg. I have a pallet-tray in which I chuck all [...]

The saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) is probably the most beautiful plant you’ll ever grow in your hot veg plot. Its beautiful, dreamy flowers and huge, molten-iron-coloured stamens are heart-breakingly beautiful. But that’s not all: this crocus is the source of that heart-breakingly expensive and utterly desirable spice, saffron.

Rosemary is a fabulous fail-safe herb. But to make sure yours stays as good-looking as possible, you need to give it a haircut. That means plenty of dried stocks, and in case you weren’t sure what to do with those, here’s our top five rosemary recipes.

Herbs are an incredibly useful feature in a potager, not least because many of them are evergreen and keep the hot plot looking fabulous in the depths of winter. But there’s another reason why you’ll want to plant as many herbs as possible: so many of them have very, very stylish leaves. ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & [...]

One thing that has been keeping me very busy over the past few weeks is the forthcoming Growing Urban Food that Seed Pantry and Fennel & Fern are running at Foyles bookshop in London in a few weeks’ time. Foyles asked for a workshop to help budding city gardeners get started with their first crops, [...]

Are you ready to start sowing? I was very excited this week when a parcel arrived containing my heated propagator for sowing plants that like it hot. And now the light is growing stronger, it is time to dig out those packets of seed which are sprawling over a shelf in my fridge and get [...]

As you know, a beautiful vegetable garden is just as important to me as a productive vegetable garden. And one of the key plants is coriander. In cooler months, this herb keeps its head down in the vegetable patch, good for cooking and deterring pests such as carrot fly. But come hotter weather and the [...]

The garden is now flinging out produce at full pelt. Fortunately, given we are vegetable-eating fiends, and our plot isn’t the largest in the world, we are just about managing to keep up. I pulled up the spring onions today to make room for a late sowing of carrots to take us into the autumn. [...]

Mint is a terribly exciting plant. It might look a bit dull, but when you discover that you can grow chocolate mint, orange mint, banana mint, ginger mint, moroccan mint, eau de cologne mint and apple mint, the plant suddenly gains a great deal more appeal. ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get 10% off [...]

Pick up a copy of this month’s Gardens Illustrated, and you’ll bag a packet of bronze fennel seeds as well. It’s no secret that we love this plant, and not just as a herb. Try growing it in your herbaceous borders as a backdrop to strongly coloured flowers such as poppies, or with bold-leaved ligularias. [...]

Even though chives are a widely-grown perennial herb, their common uses in the kitchen are limited mainly to potatoes. This is a shame as this member of the onion family is far more versatile. ——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get 10% off on flower, vegetable and fruit seeds and plants at Victoriana Nurseries. Just click here [...]