With the government advising all to avoid non essential travel and stay at home, I chose to spend some of it in the garden. The buzz of bees in the cherry blossom was a welcome background sound. The advance of spring has brought the the sun into the top part of the garden, providing my…

Photo of the ice formation in the garden this morning with my garlic in the background The frost on the garlic will do no harm at all, in fact it’s said to need a spell of cold to thrive later

Wilko are selling some of their own garden essentials in card boxes, no plastic wrapper. To keep the contents nice and dry, decant into a disused coffee or other jar and label. I have accumulated a few vinegar jars, from using vinegar as toilet cleaner. They are the perfect size

Speaking of Dove bar soap the other week, our garden has recently acquired a new visitor. We have Nicknamed her/him Chalky, and joins the pigeons who meticulously peck up the seeds knocked down by the smaller birds from the feeders in the cherry tree above

I sprinkled my veg troughs with organic slug pellets (ferric phosphate) and thought I\’d update on how things are doing. My curly kale that I planted as plugs in september are still small but promising. There is no direct sunlight on my North facing back garden until about mid to end March, and then they\’ll…

My free BBC autumn watch calendar has arrived in an entirely plastic free wrapper. My RHS magazine comes in a paper wrapper. But my Kitchen Garden mag, like so many others out there are still delivered wrapped in single use plastic that gets thrown straight out. I shall email them to find out why.

To try to cut back on throw away plastic we grow a few veg in troughs in the back garden. Today I planted some kale which will provide us with tasty leaves next spring. The trouble is I was too busy to start off my own from seed this summer, so had to fall back…

Today’s pick of my Blauhilde purple french beans and Painted Lady runner beans, which I’ll prepare for freezing. I’ll keep some to go with our Christmas dinner. Grown in my 3 metre trough in a mix of garden soil and my home made compost sprinkled with “fish blood and bone” powder which came in a…