Growing giant vegetables is an area I know little about so I enjoyed interviewing Kevin Fortey whose family have been growing these types of show winning vegetables for years to see what techniques they use.
Interview with Kevin Fortey
All posts by Mark Abbott-Compton
How to grow Garlic chives
Garlic or Chinese chives are a great addition to any garden or potager
Heres a written post on Garlic Chives
How to grow Chinese or Garlic chives
How to grow Chinese or Garlic Chives Allium Tuberosum
Garlic Chives must be one
of the easiest Herbs that we can grow in the garden and it always surprises me is that they are not grown far more as they have lots of culinary benefits and they can give you a great garlic flavour but they’re not as pungent or as strong as a garlic clove. They are evergreen in most gardens and are pretty enough to mixed in amongst your flowers.
Situation
Chinese Chives are really low maintenance and Continue reading How to grow Chinese or Garlic chives
How to “pot on” Hollyhocks, Biennials or Perennials
Potting on seedlings is one of the basics of growing,In this film I pot on the Hollyhocks we sowed a couple of weeks ago.There are some tips on what compost works best with these stunning flowers
The french call them Rose Trémière and they were first grown after being collected in southwestern China during, or possibly before, the 15th century
This film shows and is a great technique for most Biennial or Perennial vegetables or flowers
Question: Can Violets be used to protect Brassicas from Insects
I get a lot of questions here at Learn How To Garden from subscribers and viewers. I had an interesting one recently from Ginny that’s very timely . Here’s Ginny’s question:
“I’ve just bought some hardy perennials, ‘Viola Odorata’ to grow among my brassicas. I read (or it could have been a dream!!) that growing white Viola make cabbage white butterfly’s think there are already lots of cabbage white’s on the brassicas and so they don’t bother to lay their eggs.”
It’s a really interesting question and that you post because what you’re attempting to do is actually confuse the butterflies that lay their eggs on your brassicas by presenting a visual mimicry to confuse the Cabbage White Butterflies and its a different type of companion planting because normally companion planting masks the scent of the vulnerable plant or actively produces chemicals that repel certain insects.
Insects normally are attracted to their host plants via scent, Continue reading Question: Can Violets be used to protect Brassicas from Insects
