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I’ve been at Ryton where my Garden Organic colleagues have been preparing for Potato Day – a weekend really, and a veritable stampede of variety-mad gardeners from all over England, I gather. The end of January is the time to start preparing potatoes for warmer parts like London. Whether you need to chit at all …

That’s what I’m planning for this year: a bean feast.  Shortly before Christmas my (dare I say it) best present came in unassuming brown envelopes inside a padded envelope:  six varieties of drying beans from Garden Organic’s Heritage Seed Library. Phaseolus vulgaris – the bean of the people.  And a source of vulgar humour, but …

From summer-sown plants, turned into woody canes for some time now, I’ve been harvesting curly kale and cavolo nero. See here for my brassica manifesto, http://vivekagardens.com/cavolo-nero-and-other-brassicas/. I’m taking the tender little leaves, and where I decapitated one cavolo nero, baby leaves have sprouted which are all the tenderer. Frost sweetens kale, but we’ve maybe had …

Thanks to the mild winter leaf crops are still harvesting well with only protection from pigeons, Miss Haversham style under fine white netting. They are looking very pretty on the plate and tasting very nice on the palate. L – R: Lettuce ‘Valdor’ (sweet), blood-veined sorrel (sour), radicchio ‘Rosso di Treviso’ (bitter), lettuce ‘Lattughino’ (also …

Loved the angle and grace of the dichotomous branching of this tree in bare naked winter form today at Wisley and on further research I find it has so many virtues I’ll be looking for an opportunity to plant one asap. – swamped by bees in July and August with domed corymbs 15 cm (!) …

Delivering flyers (how quaint, in these days of social media and app marketing) for our Christmas wreath initiative, there was a doorway with a range of odd sticks. Aha! a small boy lives here, came the thought, as I was reminded of my now towering son, and instructions to leave wayside garnerings outside.  But gardeners …