How to create a thriving vegetable patch this spring – and what to grow right now
It is the perfect time to be sowing, planting and nurturing, to be creating a place of productivity and pleasure
5 May 2021 • 12:57pm
Garden expert Diacono reveals how to make the most out of the vegetable patch during May and June
Credit: Jason Ingram
I just mowed the lawn. It felt like the sanest thing I could do. Ordinarily, it sits alongside treading on a plug for pleasure, but today I loved it. It was beautifully, delightfully normal.
I should have been writing this article, but that felt wildly out of kilter with the enormity of living with a pandemic. Life will be unusual until restrictions are eased completely in summer.
Plants for free: a beginner s guide to propagation
Garden centres are full to bursting, but there is another way to replenish your patch – just walk out of the door and take some cuttings
3 May 2021 • 5:00am
Rooting a shoot in water is a good place to start for beginners
Credit: Flora Press/Sibylle Pietrek
Have you tried to buy a plant lately? If so, you’ll know the normally serene world of garden centres is engulfed in a maelstrom at the moment.
Lockdown-fuelled demand for all things garden-related has sent sales spiralling – but there just aren’t enough plants to go around (Covid, again, plus a smattering of Brexit). You’ll be lucky to pay below £10 for an unremarkable perennial, if you can find any on the shelves.
From April 29, 2021, a Covid-19 vaccine center will be set up at
Castello di Rivoli Museo dâArte Contemporanea in Rivoli, on the outskirts of Turin, Italy. Vaccinations will be administered in the galleries of a Claudia Comte exhibition where visitors will be ensconced in a specially-created audiovisual installation incorporating large-scale murals and a soothing sound work. I hope that people feel they are entering an inviting and calming environment, and that even some joy can be gleaned by seeing and experiencing this work while waiting to receive this very important vaccine,â said artist Claudia Comte.
Vaccination center in the Claudia Comte installation. Courtesy Castello di Rivoli Museo dâArte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino
It s finally time to get planting and planning for the ultimate summer garden
Credit: Moment RF
Ready, get set, go, go, go! For gardeners, April is the traditional time to get stuck into gardening jobs, big or small, and summer planting. We ve made it easy for you to plan, sort and create your garden this month.
Lavender
Lavandula stoechas) and go for more robust English lavender (
L. angustifolia). Hidcote’ is suited to hedging. Visit downderry-nursery.co.uk.
Quick cukes
Cucumbers are quick growing and there is still time to sow some, particularly if you choose the small-fruited varieties. I love Miniature White’ from realseeds.co.uk, which produces small, pale fruits just a couple of inches long.
How giant veg became the latest Gucci must-have accessory
Giant vegetable grower Gerald Stratford, 72, became a social media sensation and Gucci model through sheer enthusiasm and good humour
24 April 2021 • 5:00am
Veg grower Gerald Stratford with the other Gucci models on the spring/summer shoot
Credit: Courtesy of Gucci in collaboration with Highsnobiety. Photography by Hollie Fernando and styling by Ola Ebiti
Gerald Stratford is “a little bit tired”. The day before we speak, Stratford, 72, had an eight-hour round trip to Leeds for a daytime TV show; after our call, he will guest on a podcast. His hectic schedule, including five hours of social media per day, sounds exhausting, especially considering he spends as much time gardening now as he ever did before he went viral. How long is that? “How long is a day?” he replies.