Top Tips

1..If you want get your children into the garden during the summer, try getting them to plant pips and stones from fruits. Avocados, pears, apples and grapes can be grown easily in multi purpose compost on the window sill or in a very sunny corner outdoors .Planting a peanut can be quite interesting, it will produce a shoot that after flowering, the growth will bend over and grows back into the compost forming a pod below the surface.

2…A lot of garden centres in Ireland this year are selling Lattuga an Italian variety of lettuce to grow in the garden .I have to say I was delighted and sowed some myself and its now ready for picking. Id not seen it grown much before in Ireland,  It seems it was brought in from Europe to help fill the new, grow your own veg demand. It is a smaller variety with a classic deep red colour with a strong bitter taste but don’t let that put you off. An Italian friend of mines grandmother once told me “that the bitterer the taste the better the plant” .So, use a strong flavoured honey or ceaser type salad and enjoy .Unlike the usual lettuce we grow, you can cut leaves as required as it goes to seed much slower .If you can get it in seed now its still not to late to sow for autumn picking.

3…..  A dilemma for a lot of gardeners is wanting to plant up containers on the shady side of the house, bizzie lizzies will do surprisingly well. Other options are Skimmia, Ferns, Begonias, Heuchera, Ophipgon or Fatsia Japonica .Camellias can do well in some shade but you need to apply the correct compost and feed.

4…  If you find that your tomatoes are slow to ripen due to lack of sun, place the almost ripe tomatoes in a paper bag with a banana and the fumes from the banana help speed up the ripening process

5…A great rose tip is planting a combination of mint and wild garlic  between roses helps deter greenflies, and keeps weeds under control ,but you should plant the mint in  pots in the ground or else the mint will take over.

6…If you have a large shrub or tree that’s in a pot and you are not re potting it this year ,then ensure to top dress it .Remove about 50 cm of the old compost and replace it with new compost preferably not peat based, and feed with seaweed liquid feed through year.

7…A can of warm water sprinkled on newly sown seeds will enhance growth an germination .Use a fine rose on the can when applying.

8. Dont throw away old ironing boards they make an excellent potting table, and are easy to store.

9...A common question is how long will my roses last??. Thirty years plus is usually what to expect, so if they were planted in the 1970s its fair to say that they may need to be replaced.

10…Horsetail weed, should be chopped regularly to try and weaken this troublesome weed, it has a deep root system, and does not respond well to weed killers, but this will help to remove it if you apply the weed killer  round up regularly as well.