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Many of you take great pride in growing your own in your garden and being sustainable on it. So why not make a Christmas gift of Mulled wine to share your enjoyment?! It is surprisingly easy and it’ll get you in the Christmas spirit.
Ingredients
- 1 orange, sliced
- ¼tsp ground cardamom
- ½tsp ground coriander
- 1tsp ground cinnamon
- ½tsp ground fennel
- ½tsp ground ginger
- 3 cloves ...
Force chicory for one of the finest gourmet treats of the winter kitchen garden. Now is prime chicon time, when these lettuce-like vegetables are at their delicate, bittersweet best.
Chicons are the forced shoots of chicory, usually 'Witloof' types which grow like densely-packed torpedoes. Made to grow in the dark, they produce tender heads of delicate, pale leaves with little of the bitterness of chicory grown outside. Braised slowly in white wine, but...
Make a home-grown Christmas wreath from material picked straight from the back garden for a handsome and original home-grown festive feast that will cost you pennies.
You'll find ready-made wreath frames in our garden centre here in London to provide a sturdy background for your creation. You'll also need some florists' wire, and a suitably festive selection of plant material from the garden.
Collect plenty of evergreen foliage such a...
Harvest container-grown potatoes just in time for Christmas Day to enjoy that delicious home-grown flavour even in the depths of winter.
Growing your own Christmas dinner has to be the ultimate achievement for ambitious veg gardeners, with a good yield of spuds top of the list. If you haven't planted Christmas spuds this year, make a note to treat yourself next year. You'll find special potato growing barrels and sacks in our garden centre here in Londo...
Do some armchair gardening if the weather is just too bad to do any work outside. Arm yourself with inspirational books from the huge range here at our garden centre in London plus a pencil and notebook for scribbles and sketches, and allow yourself to dream.
Planning ahead and making lists of new plants and features for your garden next year helps get you organised. When you know what you want well in advance, you can pick up the right plants before ev...
Plant a nut tree for an unusual and beautiful addition to your kitchen garden. Nuts make a change from the usual apples and pears, and with their delicate spring blossom and good autumn colour they're easily ornamental enough to provide a pretty focal point among perennials and shrubs. Plus you get a bumper harvest!
Now is the perfect time to plant them, and you'll find a great selection at our garden centre here in London.
If you're short...
December's plant of the month is Sarcococca, better known as Christmas box. There are few better festive gifts from the garden on a crisp winter's day, too, as the air fills with rich, sweet perfume from its tiny, deceptively insignificant flowers.
Both the main varieties, neatly domed S. confusa and S. hookeriana var. digyna with its more slender, pointed leaves, are evergreen, reaching about 1m tall and wide, and grow well in any situation including q...
It may be chilly outside, but there's nothing like a bright, clear frosty morning to make you want to get out in the garden. There's plenty to be getting on with this month, too.
General tasks:
- Cut back deciduous hedges reducing the top to about 60cm below where you want the eventual height to allow room for new growth.
- Feed the birds with high-energy fat balls, sunflower seeds and mealworms to get them through the...
Pot up some bulbs for forcing and you'll enjoy the delight of early flowers and scent filling the house in January and February next year.
Hyacinths are the traditional choice: you'll find some lovely varieties in our garden centre here in London from azure 'Delft Blue' to fragrant white 'Carnegie'. And pots of paperwhite narcissi - tiny, delicate and fragrant winter-flowering daffodils - are also delightful cheering up a sunny windowsill when there's f...
Plant rhubarb crowns now and you'll give them all winter to establish before they burst into growth again next spring.
You'll find plenty of choice varieties on sale now in our garden centre here in London; 'Victoria' is a time-honoured favourite, while 'Timperley Early' is always first to produce a harvest. If you want to try forcing your rhubarb, 'Stockbridge Arrow' is a good performer, while ''The Sutton' is prized for its rich, sweet flavour.
...
Give your containers a pre-winter once-over to make sure they survive the cold weather in the best possible condition and perform for you again next season.
Excess winter rain is the worst enemy, flooding containers and drowning roots beyond recovery. Pot feet, available from our garden centre here in London, are easily slipped under the bottom of containers to raise them up off the ground just enough to allow excess water to drain out...
Test your soil to find out what will grow best in your garden. Whenever you take on a new garden, finding out the acidity – or pH – of your soil should be high on the priority list. Even if you've been growing on the same spot for a while, testing soil regularly keeps tabs on any gradual changes.
Soil acidity has real practical implications because it affects the nutrients different types of plants can absorb. Some plants do best in aci...