All that Twitters isn't gold
It started innocently enough, this Saturday, at our local garden centre in Long Ditton. I was patrolling the compost aisles looking for...
Ja, Das Funky Veg Kit!
Here’s a confession. Up until this summer I’d never grown any cucumbers. Not one. Even though I’d had forays into the exotica of the...
Purple haze - an addiction to Michaelmas Daisies
I originally encountered the word ‘Michaelmas’ in my first term at (possibly) the worst grammar school in England. Stuck out in the...
Summoning the spirit of Old Maurice in Long Ditton
Gravity is taken very seriously in the Grump garden, but surprisingly it’s not the law of nature that has the most sway... The law that...
Are you a one-in-five snail hurler?
A recent report from the RHS says that one in five gardeners throw snails over their neighbour’s fence. The prominence the survey got in...
Cider with Grumpy
It always seemed such a big waste to me, we had six cider apple trees and most years they would produce a bumper crop of bright apples...
‘The dribble, the power dribble, the drencher, the mister, and the vaguely usable sprinkle’
A basic guide to watering for gardeners should be the subject of a book, something like: How to Water. Nigella Lawson turned out a book...