Spring is well and truly here so this week, let’s look at companion planting. This is a natural method of planting certain plants, herbs and flowers together that either helps one plant’s growth or attracts pests to them as an alternative offering, instead of the crop you want to look after. A typical example is growing clover as a mat around Brassica (cabbage family) plants so that pests find the clover first. Smell also plays its part, with the companion plant scent distracting the pests from smelling the crop you want to save. Read on for what to plant next to which crop and there is a handy chart at the end detailing what goes well together and what to avoid.

Some of the herbs we all know and love, like thyme and rosemary, are native to coastal Mediterranean areas and the soil they prefer is sandy without too many nutrients. They seem to thrive on neglect. French tarragon is similar, so it does not need very rich soil. It just needs to drain well. However, there are choosier herbs that prefer more nutrients and homemade compost, like basil, chives, and coriander (Cilantro US). Parsley, peppermint, chives, and sage all seem typically British and have been used for centuries in cooking but there are some less well-known herbs like Lovage that used to grow in monastery gardens and this is an unusual one to try.

For a school garden, herbs are perfect if you can allow the rain to water them during school holidays and the perennial ones will still be happily growing on the return to school in September.

For many new gardeners, the sound of potato blight or tomato blight feels like another language. From mildew to botrytis, many diseases can affect your vegetable and fruit plants. Let’s look at some of the most common ones in detail and some ways to avoid them or how you can treat the plants affected.

There is a very fine line with nature when it comes to pests because some garden wildlife can be very damaging to your vegetables and fruit. I do not use pesticides or sprays because, for me, the best way is to become a collector who moves insects and caterpillars away onto sacrificial or decoy plants. That said, there is also an army of helpful beasties too like the ladybird (Ladybug US) that feeds on all those black flies and aphids on your vegetables. Bigger wildlife like rabbits, squirrels, some birds, and deer can be persuaded to move elsewhere with a few precautions. Let’s look at some of the wildlife that may affect your vegetables.

Raised beds offer many advantages to the vegetable grower. They provide deeper soil which retains moisture better and they allow you to fertilize easily in a controlled way. They can be mulched to keep adding annual fertility. They tidy your veg plot into mounds of growing space, keeping slugs and snails slightly further away. Leaving wide paths between beds is advantageous for gardeners with disability and mobility issues because they are higher off the ground, easier to seed and weed and great to sit on too. So in this article let’s make some (moveable) temporary raised beds you can try cheaply this year and if you like this method, you can try building more permanent ones next autumn.