Gardening

This is the season for jam makers. Even better, it’s the season when gardeners with laden trees give baskets full of fruit to jam enthusiasts — and the jam makers say “thank you” by giving the gardeners a jar or two of their best conserves. Homemade jam is rich in fruit and fragrant because it’s […]

Pears are possibly the easiest fruit tree to grow (although, arguably, plums could compete for that spot!). It’s hard to kill a pear tree. As long as your climate gets some frosts each winter — in other words, as far north as Brisbane — you can grow a pear tree. In subtropics and tropics, though, […]

If chillies weren’t so delicious (in small amounts, unless you love dragon’s breath) we’d grow them for their beauty. A chilli bush in full fruit is a stunning plant: bright green leaves and even brighter red fruit that hangs there for months. As I write this I’m looking out at our beds of perennial chillies […]

Spending a half an hour working in the garden can be magic. It will relax you, tone your muscles, help make you happy, provide vitamin D from the sunlight — and you may even create something wonderful, just in half an hour. (This doesn’t count the time spent in the garden centre. Garden centres can […]

In spring salvias bloom red, blue, purple and yellow. They have enormous bushes, taller than I am, with spires of flowers and dozens of eastern spinebills and other birds sipping at the nectar. By midsummer there are great banks of rich purple flowers that keep giving a stunning show all summer long. At Christmas the […]

You have just mortgaged your life and bought a house — with garden. Or you are paying rent on a house, and a garden comes with it … Or you have had a garden for years but “garden” is a bit of an exaggeration, as it’s mostly weeds, lawn that has to be mowed and […]

Midwinter is the time for feasts — not just around the table, with friends on long cold winter nights, but in the garden, too.. Summer’s harvests often have to be picked fast, before the fruit fly get into the apricots or the lettuces go to seed. Winter harvests are more gentle, and more generous too. […]

Lemon is one of the most magic scents in the garden. Much as I love roses — especially a cloud of rose perfume on a hot day — lemon scents are often stronger, as they come from the leaves, not the flowers. There are more leaves than blooms, so much more scent. This doesn’t mean […]

The first grapes I fell in love with grew next to a tiny cafe on the shore of Crete: a concrete floor, a goat standing on a chair on a table to reach the grapes over the fence, a small cup of too-sweet coffee and above us the glory of grapes, green leaves and bees […]

Once upon a time lavender was supposed to be the sexiest of scents. Sheets and underclothes were stored with lavender to keep the moths away, and we all know what happens among the sheets. And then Queen Victoria fell in love with lavender oil. She ordered that every room be polished with lavender and beeswax, […]