GreenPatches

I’ve got the timing of bringing plants indoors for winter wrong in both directions, and I know exactly which mistake stings more. One October, seduced by a warm forecast, I …

I’ll say the unfashionable thing first: most beginners obsess over “full sun” and “partial shade” labels on plant tags while having absolutely no idea what their own balcony actually receives. …

Spring 2021, my second year on the balcony, I made the kind of mistake you only make once. I had a gorgeous 10-inch (25 cm) terracotta pot — the one …

I’m going to say something that will annoy the tomato growers: radishes are the best first vegetable a beginner can grow. Not tomatoes, not peppers, not herbs — radishes. Nothing …

My first spider plant cost me £2 from the supermarket clearance shelf. It was 2020, it was sitting in a bone-dry 4-inch pot, and it had brown tips on every …

The winter my apartment turned into a fly zone, I had about fourteen houseplants and absolutely no idea what I was doing. It was my third year of growing things, …

I’ve got the timing of bringing plants indoors for winter wrong in both directions, and I know exactly which mistake stings more. One October, seduced by a warm forecast, I …

For the first two years I lived in my apartment, the view from my balcony included one very unwelcome regular: the neighbour across the courtyard, doing her dishes at the …

When did you last actually check what the soil is doing down where the roots are? Not the top centimetre — that tells you almost nothing — but three inches …