Shannon Butcher
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Review: How to grow Organic
Creating and maintaining a beautiful garden that is safe and natural is becoming increasingly popular as we begin to understand the benefits of adopting an organic way of life.
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Pests and diseases
Enemy number one for most vegetable growers, slugs and snails, love damp conditions and thrive in a warm, wet summer.
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Growing undercover
The vast majority of popular fruit and vegetable crops can be grown outside in the UK; however our growing season is relatively short and can be quite variable weather-wise to say the least.
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Feeding and watering
Watering is particularly important at seed sowing time, planting out and just after seedlings emerge. Once vegetables become established it is less important unless you garden on very free-draining soil.
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Plug plant essentials
Sowing seeds isn’t the only way to raise the plants you need to achieve great harvests. Plug plants offer a convenient alternative to buying seeds, or as away to fill gaps or top up numbers if sowings fail for any…
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How to sow
Some vegetables are sown direct and then thinned out as they grow and are harvested where they were originally sown.
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Hanging veg gardens
It is possible to grow an increasing range of tasty vegetables and herbs in hanging baskets, here are some top tips to get you started.
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Bag up your veg
Why not make use of the growing-bag to grow some great crops. The growing-bag is the perfect self contained veg-growing kit and averycosteffective method of container growing.
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Growing in containers
So, what’s a container? This depends on what crops you are growing, for example lettuce and salad leaves can be grown in quite shallow containers. A small trough 17cm (7in) deep and 30cm (12in) long would suffice for a few…
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Starting the veg patch
You can start a veg patch almost any time if you have a nice piece of bare soil. However, if you are starting from scratch and the area is still lawn or very weedy this is best treated with a…
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Improving your soil
Having good soil is the foundation to producing successful crops. You can get a feel for what your soil type is like by squeezing ahandful. Does it stay together, moulded in asolid lump, or is it crumbly?
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The right tools for the job
One of the joys of growing fruit and veg is the fact that you don’t need any high tech equipment. Although it can be tempting to spend lots of money on kit, you will find that just afew good tools…
