Radish ‘Scarlet Globe’ / ‘French Breakfast’

Radish seeds are large and it’s easy to sow them at the correct spacing, with no need to thin them out. They are already for harvest within a few weeks and only require a little watering and hand weeding in dry weather.

Miners’ lettuce/winter purslane

This lettuce is so easy to grow it has actually naturalised in some areas of the UK. It will provide a steady salad crop throughout October - March, it tastes similar to spinach.

Oriental salad mix

The leaf mixes can be grown so the plant can be cut and will grow again. Very little attention is required and it will provide you with a lovely variety of colours, flavours and textures for stir fries and salads. They can be grown in containers or in the garden in the ground.

Chilli ‘Cayenne’

They grow well in containers on window sills or, alternatively, in a warm and sunny position outside in the garden. Their growing requirements are similar to bush tomatoes and they will continue to crop until first frosts in autumn.

Courgette ‘Defender’ F1

Courgettes are already renowned for their production of an abundant crop from only a few plants. ‘Defender’ F1 is the British variety which is ideal for small spaces and is further resistant to cucumber mosaic virus.

Now there is increased awareness of organic farming and healthy eating so many more people are trying at growing their own vegetables.

These plants were picked as they require minimum maintenance and suffer from few pests and diseases, they will produce a decent yield with little skill or effort.

Beetroot ‘Boltardy’

This is popular and very reliable beetroot. It has great resistance to bolting, making it a great choice for beginner growers. This plant produces medium size roots, smooth skin and a deep red flesh.

Salad leaves – cut and grow again

If you want an easy-to-grow but fresh salad, try growing your own cut-and-come-again salad leaves. Lettuces can be harvested for young leaves rather than mature hearts. As they are harvested when they are young, they don’t need a lot of space to grow, so you won’t need to keep thinning them out. They grow over a long period, so you are able to harvest the leaves in winter to early spring.

Bush tomato ‘Gartenperle’

Easier to grow than the cordon varieties because they don’t need supporting and the side shoots do not require pricking. These tomatoes grow well in a hanging basket or even pot, both outdoors or in a greenhouse.

Early potatoes ‘Anya’ or ‘Red Duke of York’

These potatoes can be reared in a container or in the ground. Early potatoes should be harvested in July, before any hot, humid weather increases the impending threat of potato blight. When the flowers have died down, poke around the base of the haulms and then dig out the golf ball size tubers with a fork that has a blunt end.

Peas ‘Half Pint’

These peas are smaller than normal regular pea plants, so they don’t require staking. This plant can even be grown in a container. The younger tips should be trimmed for adding to salads and are followed by flowers and pods.

There are so many different species of aphid that are often with their own favourite host plants and life cycle. Out of all the aphids, Greenfly and Black fly are the most common, however, there are also red, yellow, orange and brown aphids.

Aphids will usually spend the entire summer on just one plant and moving to another host plant over the winter months. Aphids breed at quite an alarming rate and females can actually give birth to live young when they are only a week old. Aphids are sap sucking pests, the excess sap is excreted as honeydew. The sticky residue falls on to the lowest leaves of a plant, attracting a black sooty mould, this in turn inhibits photosynthesis and further deprives the plant of energy.

The Solution

Organic

The natural predators, such as birds, ladybirds, earwigs, hoverflies, ground beetles and spiders are a gardener’s best allies. Some of these are actually available as biological controls, but they need time to tackle a problem so you can’t expect them to hoover up all aphids overnight.

Small clusters of aphids can be washed off with a strong jet of water.

The insecticidal soap sprays are quite effective, however, they must come into contact with the pest to work.

Chemical

Do not feed plants with nitrogen rich fertiliser, it will encourage a sappy soft growth that is especially vulnerable to an aphid attack. There are so many products that are available to control aphids and if you intend to use these fertilisers on edible crops. Imidacloprid and thiacloprid are found in systemic products and they are absorbed by plants, before being taken in by the aphids.

There are many different types of ants you may find in your garden, however, of all the colours; the black, red and yellow ants it is only the red ones (which are from the Myrmica species) that sting. Other than this, ants are really more of a nuisance than a pest or a threat to you. Ants feed mainly on other insects and this includes other ants. They also feed on honeydew and the sweet sticky substance that is excreted by aphids. Ants are also known to actually defend the aphids against their predators in return for their harvest of honeydew.

The Solution:

Organic

One thing that can be said about ants is that they are persistent and it is almost impossible to eliminate them entirely in the garden. You can flush ants out from your garden containers by giving your compost a really thorough drenching with water. Repeat where necessary, although take care not to completely drown your plants or they will die!

To keep ants off your benches/shelves in a greenhouse try wrapping a grease band around each of your bench legs, or stand the legs on a block of wood within a dish of water. Using a stiff brush when removing ant hills that may live in the lawn.

Chemical

There are so many ant killing products on the market, however, they are mostly effective at killing ants that tend stray indoors than completely eliminating ant nests in the garden.

Gardens are so very important for bumble bees and, of course, vice versa. Bees need our flowers for sustenance and our flowers need bees for their pollination. So it’s important that the flowers you grow provide the food that bees need.

Preferred flowers

The majority of double flowers are of no use, they’re too elaborate. Some double flowers are bred without their male and female parts whilst others have too many petals and the bees can’t get to the nectar or pollen to collect it. So, this is the main reason why the single dahlias are very popular with most bees, whilst the flower doubles are usually ignored.
In the single flowered rose family there are; crab apple, potentilla and hawthorn and they seem to be irresistible to the bumble bee, along with the flowers of angelica, fennel, cow parsley and sedums.
The flower family that have tubular shaped flowers are foxgloves, heathers, snapdragons and penstemons and these are also favourite feeding places for the bumble bee.

Plants for life

It is so vital that you provide flowers throughout the life cycle of the bumble bee which is from March to September. It is also a good idea to have a minimum of two nectar or pollen rich flowers and plants in flower during any one time during bumble bee’s life period. Nectar will feed the adult bee whilst the pollen is further collected to feed their young. As you would expect, the more flowers you have in your garden, the more likely you are to attract bumble bees to your garden, so you can never have too many nectar rich flowers!

The following flowers will attract more bumble bees into your garden throughout various seasons:

Spring flowers
Crab Apple, Daffodil, Forget Me Not, Hawthorn, Rosemary, Bluebell, Bugle, Flowering cherry and currant, Hellebore, Pussy Willow, Pulmonaria, Rhododendron, Viburnum, Thrift (Armeria maritima).

Early-summer flowers
Fennel, Geranium, Snapdragon, Thyme, Aquilegia, Astilbe, Campanula, Comfrey, Everlasting Sweet Pea, Foxglove, Potentilla, Stachys, Teasel,Verbascum.

Late-summer flowers
Heather, Ivy, Angelica, Aster, Buddleia, Cardoon, Cornflower , Dahlia (single-flowered), Lavender, Delphinium, Eryngium, Fuchsia, Globe Thistle, Penstemon, Scabious, Sedum.