24/08/2020 - In this month’s guest blog, the team at Marsh & Parsons Tooting highlight how the current Stamp Duty holiday is exciting news for anyone hoping to make a property purchase under £500,000 before March 2021. For those looking to buy a home, Tooting is a brilliant place to look. As well as generally getting more space for their money – there are plenty of spacious one and two double bedroom properties for under £500,000 in the area..... Collapse

19/08/2020 - Every gardener needs a good pair of garden secateurs, however big or small your garden is - check out our shortlist of the best secateurs you can buy today Collapse

26/07/2020 - Our attempt at illicit entry failed, but my brother blagged free entry from some people in the queue. In that moment, he reminded me more than ever of our dadGardeners are incredibly good at getting their point across, aren’t they? For weeks, the plight of garden centres was at the forefront of the country’s collective mind. Then, last week, a collective of botanical gardens popped up, pleading with people who had reserved tickets to turn up. They were already on their knees and couldn’t cope with the no-shows. I felt a bolt of shame on hearing this, as just the day before I had tried to break into a botanical garden with one of my brothers. (It sounds worse than it was: we didn’t take bolt cutters or anything.)The brother in question met our father, and the rest of us, when he was 28 (I was 30). Then, 18 months later, our dad died, which felt more than unjust to the pair of them; it had that sour taste of the universe cocking up. They deserved more time together. But, from a selfish Collapse

25/07/2020 - When the weather gets warmer, spores thrive. Here are some tricks to prevent them taking holdAs summer swirls around our plants – rain and sun and rain again – other things start to grow. Tiny airborne spores float about looking for a surface on which to land and feed; if they find courgettes, marrows, pumpkins or cucumbers with those lush big leaves, they’ll happily alight and grow a fine powdery mildew across the surface. Related: How to grow beetroot | Alys Fowler Continue reading... Collapse

21/07/2020 - As lockdown restrictions continue to ease, Guardian readers tell us what pastimes and skills they’ve discovered – and rediscovered – during the pandemic During lockdown, my husband and I have taken daily walks in the countryside that have kept us sane and given us a break from the monotony of confinement. Along the way, I have collected stones to paint. Looking for ways to engage the five-year-olds in my class (and missing them a bit too), I painted each stone to look like them and used them to make videos, games and to tell stories. The children loved them and it made some of their lessons a little more meaningful in what has been a challenging time. Anna Clow, 52, early years teacher, Lyon, France Continue reading... Collapse

12/07/2020 - Having green fingers is not as complicated as you might thinkAfter months of self-isolating, this weekend I masked-up and joined the queue for my garden centre. As someone who normally visits nurseries or plant shops at least twice a week, it was a huge relief to be surrounded by all the greenery. But perhaps what was even more exciting were the enormous numbers of young people waiting patiently in line to get a houseplant fix. Working in an industry that has struggled for decades to figure out how to make itself relevant and accessible to those under 50, it’s wonderful to finally see a new generation discovering the joys of the natural world through indoor gardening.But with so much frankly terrible advice on houseplants out there (ironically on the very social media platforms that have created this new flowering of interest), I also had to repress the desperate compulsion to advise the 20-somethings on the plants they were buying. However, doling out unsolicited advice is a bit Collapse

07/07/2020 - If your green fingers have been busy during lockdown, you may well now have a sackful more broad beans than you bargained for. Here are some creative, storable, freezable ideas to deal with the glut• Do you have a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.comThis is my first year growing broad beans, and I’ve got so many. Any ideas what I can do with them?Liz, NorthamptonshireNothing says summer quite like the unzipping of those fluffy jackets, so this is a nice problem to have, Liz. The good news is that, whatever their age, broad beans always have a use. Chef Henrietta Inman, who cooks and bakes using only natural, locally-sourced ingredients, eats the young pods whole, raw with butter and salt (you could add chopped mint, too), with bagna cauda or a pulse-based dip. That doesn’t automatically mean chickpeas, though: “There are so many other interesting beans and pulses growing in the UK,” she says. Her favourites come from Hodmedods, pioneer of UK-grown pulses, from quinoa to Collapse

04/07/2020 - These daisy-like flowers will happily self-seed to bring beautiful disorderThe delicate, daisy-like flowers of Mexican fleabane, Erigeron karvinskianus, need little introduction. It’s the plant of walls and pavement cracks that, if happy, will seed itself effortlessly into improbably small spots. The first time I became aware of it was when I had to mow the ridiculously perfect strips of lawn that sit either side of Wisley’s formal pond – a task I was always going to fail, because I am not the sort to make straight lines. I wasn’t doing badly at the start, but veered off wildly when I saw this little daisy spilling out down the steps: after all the restrained formality of rectangles, planes and lines, here was a wild thing cascading with gay abandon. Related: How to grow cucurbits: pumpkins, courgettes and cucumbers | Alys Fowler Continue reading... Collapse