Gardeners are known for their idiosyncrasies regarding the tools that they use. Whether it is the hoe that their grandfather gave them or a new gadget for turning the soil, every person has their own likes and dislikes.

As the growing season starts in earnest it is a good time to reevaluate the tools that you own, repair any broken items or search the garden centres or the internet for new shiny items will bolster your current collection. Any items that have become blunt can be sharpened with a metal file. Items that have rusted can be cleaned with a wire brush and then wire wool to achieve a polished finish. Knives, cutters or secateurs can be sharpened using a sharpening stone available from any DIY store. Raw wooden handles can be treated with linseed oil to protect their surface and give them a nice finish.

After the tools are clean and sharpened it is a good idea to give them a rub over with any general purpose oil, this will protect them from further rust during the coming season.

There are many good sharpening tools available to make these jobs easier for you; discounts can usually be had in stores or various internet sites with the help of promotional codes or vouchers. It is always handy to keep your sharpening equipment close at hand throughout the gardening season; this will let you touch up any blunt items to make your gardening experience easier and more enjoyable.

Rhubarb is back in fashion! Once a food staple, rhubarb became less fashionable during the late 70s and 80s due to the fad of pre-packed more exotic produce. This has all changed with the new culture of eating good quality ‘homely’ food that has gripped the nation and the positive press that rhubarb has received due to its health benefits.

A perennial vegetable, rhubarb is essential in every person’s allotment garden. Planting from seed can take a huge amount of time and effort to create a plant of adequate size and quality. So it is always advisable to buy established crowns or if you are lucky someone may split an established rhubarb plant for you. Always make sure that the root piece has one large crown bud so the rhubarb can establish itself mush more quickly.

Crowns should be planted in the spring about 5cm below the surface, you can use lots of organic matter on the crown, even creating a mound above the surface due to the plants requirement for lots of organic matter. Doing a pH test on the area where the rhubarb is to be planted is a good idea due to its natural tendency to like acid soils (pH 6-7).

Young plants should not be harvested frequently and not at all in the first year of planting. It is important to remember that only the stalks must be eaten, the leaves contain dangerous levels of oxalic acid which can cause severe illness.

Rhubarb can be pulled (not cut) from around April time in the UK unless it is forced.

One of the great things about growing your own fruit and vegetables on an allotment is being able to control the conditions in which they are grown. The cost of organic vegetables at the supermarket is greatly above that of the other produce, so what better way to beat the recession than by growing your own organic fruit and vegetables!

Organic growth of vegetables requires excluding or strictly limiting the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, additives and genetically modified organisms. Instead techniques such as green manure, crop rotation, composting and biological pest control are used to maintain soil productivity and control pests and disease. The food industry that produces organic products is heavily regulated, and very distinct from private gardening.

“An organic farm, properly speaking, is not one that uses certain methods and substances and avoids others; it is a farm whose structure is formed in imitation of the structure of a natural system that has the integrity, the independence and the benign dependence of an organism”

says Wendell Berry in his book ‘The Gift of Good Land’. Organically grown produce is generally believed to be healthier and organically grown fruit and vegetables are believed to contain up to 40% more antioxidants that standard produce.

Have you ever been outwitted by a devious artificial plant? I have. It makes me feel inferior.

Time was, you could easily spot an artificial plant, because it was probably just a piece of cardboard cut into a childish approximation of the shape of a plant and then painted green. Things have moved on since then. The damn things are more cunning.

These days we’ve progressed to a point where you sometimes can’t tell whether a plant’s real or not, even after touching it. People put them in compost to disguise their artificiality. You can probably get them dusted with pollen that’s been manufactured in a lab.

Far from being laughably naff stains on your home decor, artificial plants are actually worthy of consideration these days, particularly if you’re lazy or forgetful and have seen a whole procession of green guests wither and die in the corner of your room. You can’t kill something that isn’t alive. They don’t need watering. They don’t need you.

Yes, artificial plants are here, cluttering up the place and thinking that they’re better than you. Are you going to stand for it? You’re going to have to. You can’t even set fire to the faux-botanical invaders because they’re fire retardant.

Cottage gardens were first developed when there was a realization that adding certain flowers to vegetable plots would attract bees which pollinate crops. What evolved were deep borders, a pathway, perfumed herbs and rich flowers and maybe the odd rustic bench tucked away.

You can re-create the chocolate box cottage garden look for your garden by adding informal gravel path edging and maybe an archway of willow or lavender. Add many mixtures of flowering shrubs and perennials and coloured bulbs and flowers, the sheer mixture of plants will attract bees and butterflies.

Planting

It is usual to see cottage garden plants growing closely together as if it were a random thing without any aesthetic plan.

It takes good planning to create an entirely natural looking garden and it involves using all your space by squeezing the right plants into the right corners of your garden. Planting plants that cover the ground such as honeysuckle and climbing clematis are always the best idea.

Full of details, cottage gardens provide further interest if they have edged pathways which are complemented by a row either side of plants. Forsythia is a good plant to use for this as are Box Balls and Lavender. If you can train your ivy to fall over your pathway as an archway this can look stunning.

Where there are hedges and ever green plants in your garden, cut holes or patterns in them so the onlooker can see through them to the garden space and flowers beyond the bushes.

If you want to grow a really healthy vegetable plot that will last you for years, read on.

Choosing vegetables

This is one of the most exciting things about growing vegetables – picking them! So go for the vegetables you love eating without getting carried away and making sure you have enough space for the growth of each, look for vegetables you can progressively harvest so you maintain growth through the season.

There are 4 main vegetable groups and it is good to know which fall into which before you choose which ones to grow.

Group One: Swede, turnips, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale.
Group Two: Beetroot, chicory, carrots, artichokes, parsnips, potatoes and salsify
Group three: All types of beans and peas.
Group four: Salad crops and all other vegetables

Plot rotation

Group your vegetables together if they fall into the same group as listed. Divide your plant bed up into 4 sections to accommodate the 4 different groups. You must not plant the same vegetable in the same place year on year because it will destroy the nutrients in the soil and the soil needs to be replenished. So if you keep a note of what is where and where the boundaries of the 4 beds are (best marked out by wire), you will know that in your second year, you will need to move one section forward and have the next group of vegetable growing in it.

Wildflowers flowing across your garden make a stunning garden feature and this is regardless of you having a garden that is rolling acres or only a few metres.

All you need is a section of lawn that stands in an open, sunny site and you can transform it into a wonderful wildflower meadow. This will not only provide cover and in some cases food for wildlife it is easy to maintain than an average lawn and you have a selection of a large choice of wildflowers that will last from spring to beginning of autumn.

The lawn
Laws that are low in nutrients are perfect for planting; however, to further keep nutrient levels low stop using weed killers and fertilizers and mow the lawn often, remove grass clippings immediately to stop further nutrients from feeding back into the soil.

The Planting
This is the perfect time to start planting your wildflowers as plug plants. When choosing the type of flowers you want, apart from taking into consideration the colour scheme and personal preference look at the condition of your soil to see what will grow best. For the best natural look arrange your wildflowers into groups and mark out the distance between them making the pattern you desire in your lawn. Cut out a round core of soil from the lawn using a trowel, drop a handful of natural compost into the hole, plant the plug, cover and then spread it with leaf mould before water it carefully.

Bring in the ladybirds

A commonly popular snack for these insects after hibernation is a patch of nettles (or a nettle aphid); this is not a garden pest.

Bat Boxes

If you can build a bird box you can build a bat box and by creating a similar entrance to the traditional bird box just put it on the underside of the box rather than the side (or even just turn your bird box upside down offers much needed shelter for the declining bat numbers in the UK.

Berries for Birds

Birds love berries and by planting these types of plants such as honeysuckle and raspberry the number of bird visits to your garden will increase substantially

Collect Rainwater

Keep a pipe lead draining from the top of your roof so it catches the rainwater and leads it directly to a water butt, this keeps water in reserve for your garden (rainwater is better for garden life anyway) and every summer we face hose pipe bans.

Add Flower Boxes

Add flower boxes or sedum mats to the shed will filter out air pollutants and will substantially increase the local eco-system.

Have a Bird Table

Help to keep our birds fed in the forthcoming winter months by leaving a bird table outside that at the very least will keep them safe from prowling cats and would be hugely beneficial if you topped up with breadcrumbs daily!

Avoiding chemicals in gardening makes a huge and much needed contribution towards the environment and right now everything helps so if you are sworn to gardening as organically as possible, read on.

The best tips on getting started with your organic garden:

Digging in compost and leaf mould will dramatically improve your soil quality.

Recycle your vegetable peelings, pruning from plants and even tea bags.

Stop any weeds spreading in your plant beds by spreading compost bark over the soil’s surface.

Try and always to choose fruit and vegetables plants to grow that are naturally disease and pest ridden varieties.

Encourage wildlife into your garden which will control gardening pests like slugs and greenfly.

Only use biological pest control products in your greenhouse and garden.

Keep stressed plants well watered and therefore, less vulnerable to disease.

There is such a thing called companion planting where one plant or both plants protect each other in some way – this is a good idea to adopt when you are trying to grow edible crops, its best to plant strong scented plants near them to deter pests.

Keep an eye on your garden regularly (at least once a week if not daily), and catch any problems as early as possible to avoid disaster.

Build a small pond and attract frogs.

Frogs are great in controlling the number of snails and slugs which are the nightmare of most gardeners, however, a much more eco-friendly alternative to throwing down harmful slug pellets is to naturally encourage frogs and other more natural predators of slugs back into your garden.

Even a simple container pond can be a simple plastic bowl filled with some rain water and a few pond plants like bog bean, yellow flag-iris and marsh marigold will attract frogs and newts to your garden. You will, of course, need to add a little plank of wood for the frogs to use as a ramp as an entry and exit to the container.

Hedgehogs

Not many people may know this but the numbers of hedgehogs is down dramatically and that’s right across the country. If you leave a corner in your garden a little overgrown and less tidy it will provide the perfect place for hedgehogs wanting to hibernate.

Butterflies

Keep butterflies visiting your garden by providing the most popular of British classics such as forget me knots, ivy and daisies.

Bumble Bees

Keep your garden bumble bee friendly in planting the wildflowers which they love like e.g. knapweed and foxglove, the UK’s bumble bee population is diminishing and this will help hugely with pollination.