A sprinkling of Latte Creations makes an everyday coffee break extra special
Kim Wilde's top plants for beginners
Stuck for plant ideas in your garden? Take a leaf out of Kim Wilde's gardening book as she offers her expert tips on how to pick and mix borders of easy-to-grow vegetables, healing plants and eye-catching architectural plants
Five of the best veg
1. Beetroot
The large, easy to handle seeds can be sown directly outside in spring and the young leaves are very tasty in salads. Beetroot tastes fabulous roasted with other root veg, sprinkled with fresh rosemary or pickled with horseradish and garlic. Fresh raw beetroot is delicious grated in salads and is a powerful blood cleanser.
2. Potatoes
Potatoes will grow in anything that can retain water but has good drainage, from old tyres to plastic bags. I grow tubers in the ground and keep them covered with earth as they're growing so as they don't become exposed to the sun as this will turn them green and poisonous.
Potato barrels are available with easy lift up sides. These are very useful on patios or balconies. A plate of fresh, young potatoes lightly steamed with a sprig of fresh mint and butter is a taste sensation not to be underestimated!
3. Rhubarb chard or 'Rainbow Mix'
A plant that looks so beautiful and striking you could simply grow it as a container plant. This very easy to grow, leafy vegetable and can be steamed with butter or the young leaves tossed into salads.
4. Salad leaves
When you look at how expensive packets of salad leaves are, surely it makes sense to grow your own organic ones right outside your kitchen door. They are packed full of goodness, and most will re-sprout after harvesting 'cut and come again'. To protect seedlings from slugs and snails, I use copper tape. They hate to slither over as it creates a small electric shock so they soon slither off!
5. Apples
You don't have to have a big garden to grow your own apples. A small courtyard with a sunny wall could easily play host to an espalier tree which has been trained horizontally. Choose apple varieties grafted on rootstock M27 which is extra-dwarfing. M27 is a tried and tested rootstock developed in 1929 that reliably restricts height to 2 metres but the plant will need the support of a tree stake.
Choose disease-resistant apple varieties as these are easier to care for, healthier and happier and may be grown organically without too much effort. If you are buying only one tree and you are not surrounded by apple trees in your neighbours' gardens, make sure it is self-fertile. Otherwise buy two or more different varieties of apple tree with overlapping flowering periods.
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