Kitchen Garden

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With autumn in full swing you may be forgiven for thinking that there is not much to do other than to harvest the remnants of your summer crops and start on the hardy veg that has been slowly growing since spring. However, as our jobs pages show this

These roots get sweeter the more plants are exposed to frosts. Having said that, texture suffers if roots freeze and they can be eaten by slugs and rodents if left in the ground too long. You can just dig roots as needed and cover the rest of the row

Send us your tips and pictures and if your letter is published you will get a £10 Dobies voucher. If you are lucky enough to have yours chosen as our Star Letter you will get a £25 voucher. Your voucher will be sent out with a Dobies catalogue and yo

At the start of lockdown back in March, when normal life suddenly vanished and time seemed to stop, we finally got around to doing something that we had always wanted to do: My son, Oscar, planted his own vegetable garden. He helped me dig over his p

PRIMROSE: I laughed at myself the other day when uprooting a few finished tomato plants to find myself carefully untying the string which bound them to their stakes to use again next year. I couldn’t make up my mind whether I was being tight or econo

Tel 01507 529396, Fax 01507 371075 EDITOR: Steve Ott, sott@mortons.co.uk DEPUTY EDITOR: Emma Rawlings, erawlings@mortons.co.uk STAFF WRITER: Tony Flanagan, tflanagan@mortons.co.uk PRODUCTION EDITOR: Pauline Hawkins PUBLISHER: Tim Hartley DESIGN

Our Star Question winner will receive vouchers worth £25; the writers of all other questions printed will receive a £10 voucher. They can be redeemed against any products in the latest Mr Fothergill’s catalogue, which will be sent out with the vouche

I wonder if you could help me out by identifying what is wiping out my runner bean plants – brown patches on leaves that then die and now brown patches on beans themselves. Miike Ashbridge, Pembrokeshire Guy Barter, chief horticulturist RHS GUY

Spinach can be frozen packed in ice cube trays or after cutting into convenient portions. Before freezing squeeze out excess water firmly Keep a notebook detailing what produce is in the freezer and when it was frozen so that it can be used in rotat

As mentioned above, although many of our cherished veggies are perfectly hardy, they will suffer damage from cold wet soils and pests, and lifting and storing elsewhere is often the best bet. This simply involves lifting carefully so as not to damage

Your shed or other storage space should be cool but frost-free, dark and dry with as low a humidity as possible. Some ventilation to allow a flow of air (however slight) around the stored veg or veg containers is desirable. As mentioned it should be

Many of us have little space for growing veg and as a result growing in pots has become increasingly popular. Potatoes and carrots do particularly well and in fact not only thrive in pots while they are growing, but can also be stored in the compost

Steve, Emma and Tony are busy on the KG plot, still plenty of planting going on. Tony is planting out broad bean plants 23cm (9in) apart in the polytunnel with the promise of an early crop, mid to late May. Early November is the last chance to plan

If you have no space in the garden, why not grow them in old buckets (with drainage holes)? You can plant six cloves per bucket and as long as you keep them well watered in dry periods you should end up with six healthy bulbs per bucket! If buckets a

Garlic suffers from the same problems as onions and leeks, so rust, white rot and allium leaf miner can be a problem sometimes. However, one of the main problems people always mention is when the garlic skins split and soil can get in between the clo

ELEPHANT GARLIC (Allium ampeloprasum) produces huge bulbs which can weigh up to 1kg each! They are more closely related to leeks and have a much milder taste than regular garlic, perfect to roast whole and smear on crunchy toast for the best garlic b

1 Soak the seeds overnight to speed germination then sow them fairly thickly into seed trays filled with sieved compost. 2 Tamp the seeds down into the compost then water by misting over the surface with a spray bottle. Stacking the trays and applyi

■ GOOD AIR: Lights can go pretty much anywhere as long as there is adequate ventilation so that the air doesn’t become stale and damp. ■ FROM ABOVE: To stop plants leaning in one direction hang or set lights so they are set directly above the plants.

Mix leaves according to their growth habits. Try these simple groupings. LETTUCES: Try growing a mix of different lettuces together in one container or seed tray. BRASSICAS: For a peppery tang to your salads. These include kale, Oriental leaves and

With more mouths to feed, shortages of land and the ever-encroaching effects of climate change, some farmers are responding by going ultra-high tech. One example is vertical farming, where quick-growing salads, herbs and fruits are grown in stacked l

There is a perennial type of sprouting broccoli (more correctly a cauliflower) called ‘Nine Star Perennial’ that will produce white heads each spring for around three years before it needs to be replaced. Plants are available from young plant special

Continue to keep watch for pests, although these should be less of a problem as the plants mature. Whitefly are possibly the hardest to control and will persist even in the winter. Thankfully they do little harm and tend to infest leaves rather than

■ ‘PURPLE SPROUTING’: Your free seeds this month. Sow during April and May for cropping from March to May. Very hardy, productive and reliable. (Widely available) ■ ‘BURBANK F1’: A British bred white-flowered type cropping from February to May. (D T

All readers who are picked to be our Plotter of the Month will receive a great bundle of prizes worth an amazing £444 each! To enter, simply fill in a questionnaire and send us 10 pictures of your plot and a picture of yourself and/or others that hel

The collection contains one bare root plant each of: ■ ‘BEN CONNAN’ AGM: this excellent and reliable blackcurrant tolerates frost and resists mildew to produce a heavy crop of really large, juicy berries with an outstanding flavour. Packed full of go