What's new, what's growing, what we're learning. Updates, guides and stories for people who take their garden seriously.
Soft soap, beer traps, coffee grounds, tansy brew: an honest myth check showing which home remedies actually work, which ones just make work, and which are not permitted in a home or allotment garden at all.
Wormy plums are almost always the work of the plum moth. Once you understand its two generations and flight periods, you can cut the damage sharply with a pheromone trap, a trunk band and autumn hygiene, entirely without chemicals.
Black stars, a white veil, orange dots: three leaf pictures tell you which rose disease you are facing, and how to cure it with a rake and secateurs instead of a spray bottle.
Cabbage has two main enemies: the cabbage white, whose caterpillars strip the leaves bare, and the unseen cabbage root fly, whose maggots destroy the roots. Here is how to keep both off without poison, with net, collar and a look under the leaves.
Shortly after flowering, whole shoot tips of the sour cherry wilt and die brown. It looks like late frost but is Monilia blossom blight. How to tell the two apart and why cutting back well into the healthy wood is the key.
Fruit that rots brown on the tree and carries pale spore cushions in rings: brown rot. Why the fungus enters almost only through wounds, why the overwintering mummified fruit is the key, and how to curb the rot without sprays.
In spring the peach leaves blister, curl and turn red: peach leaf curl. Why you can fight it only before leaf-out, how a rain roof protects the tree, and which varieties shrug off the attack better.
Fire blight is the most dangerous pome fruit disease and notifiable. How to recognise the suddenly scorched-looking shoots with the typical shepherds crook, why you must not prune yourself, and what to do on suspicion.
Brown patches on apples and foliage: apple scab is almost unavoidable in wet years. How to recognise it on leaf and fruit, why scab-resistant varieties save all spraying in the home garden, and what else helps.
