There’s still a lot growing on the windowsills, including cherry (Garden Pearl) and plum tomatoes, sweet Genovese basil, baby leaf spinach, rocket and land cress. I was told that all the tomatoes would ripen at the same time with these varieties, but instead we’ve had plenty of fruits each week and there are still flowers here and there as well. That’s much better for a kitchen garden, as it’s better to try for a continuous supply of fresh produce rather than a glut that needs using up or preserving.

I think next year I’ll be less lazy with what I grow and have some cordon type toms, instead of the bushy types. Longer growing seasons and higher yields should make better use of the limited space, even if they aren’t the sort of plants you can chuck in a pot and forget about.

The windowsill is warm, sunny and pest free, which is handy for most plants. The garden has had lots of problems with beet leaf miners which have ruined most of the outdoor spinach, leaf beet and chard, but baby leaf spinach is just fine on the sill. The dwarf beans are happy here too, away from this year’s swarms of greenfly, and still flowering and making full sized french beans every few days.

The windowsill herbs here are mint and parsley, and they’re doing fine. No need to spend stupid amounts of money for very little at the supermarket…

Most of the pots had to be moved outside in the end. There’s almost no topsoil here, but they’re doing OK on the decking. Here we have different types of basil, lemon balm, marjoram, a cucumber plant, autumn sprouting calabrese, thyme and some toms with an incredible amount of fruit on them. There are some mixed wild flowers in there too, to get bees to pollinate the plants, and to attract hoverflies to eat garden pests.

I’m experimenting with some more unusual foodie flavours I’ve never grown before, including giant red mustard, sorrel, russian tarragon, salad burnet and golden purslane. To keep a regular supply of the things we eat the most, I’ve also been sowing a few seeds of parsley, radishes, stubby carrots, coriander and spring onions every couple of weeks in small pots. Very easy to throw together and it really keeps the grocery bills down because you don’t run out of your favourites.

This looks like a raised bed, but it’s just more knackered decking with the wood taken off the top and the rubble removed, plus some cheap compost chucked in. This monster below is white sprouting broccoli, and it’s basically the only thing that the cat hasn’t dug up (I suspect it secretly threatens to eat the cat when I’m not listening). Thanks to my be-clawed ‘little helper’, the almost-raised bed hasn’t been much of a success and the only way it’s going to work is if I plant things in it that are already pretty large. I’ve been growing a few things in modules in the mini-greenhouse so let’s see how the next batch of plants get on.

The front of the decking has an older cucumber plant with some salad leaves at the base, the non-stop courgette plant and some almost-ready salad potatoes. They have all done me proud and been very easy to grow with hardly any care needed.

The back of the decking is where I got a little over-confident, with some sweetcorn, a butternut squash plant and all kinds of beans growing up the trellis (which saved on buying canes). Take it from me, sweetcorn and Hunter squash are not ideal for most small gardens – they’re nutrient hungry and low yield, and thirsty. Don’t try this at home. But the seeds were free and if it all goes to plan they will probably be delicious. To get the best yield from sweetcorn you have to plant it in clumps rather than rows, there are 12 in this picture.

The sweetcorn variety is a new one that grows about 4 to 6 mini sweetcorn per plant, but if you miss the baby corn stage, unlike some others, it goes on to give you a couple of nice fat corn cobs per plant as well. Sounds too good to be true, and it is – to get the baby sweetcorn out you practically have to rip the plants to pieces so although they were tasty I am letting the rest of them become full sized cobs.

Hardly any beans so far - a late frost got half of the first lot and karate kitty got the second lot. Thanks kitty. The borlotto beans are the only variety outdoors to produce anything edible to date. Fingers crossed for the rest of them, which were a late sowing.

There are a few crappy old windowboxes left behind by the previous owners, and these are now filled with herbs, various salad leaves, beetroot, mini-cabbages, fennel, and a few other goodies. There are also some marigolds to cheer the place up and bring in the bees/scare off pests.

The hanging salad baskets have grown a lot of food from very little compost, including red and green salad bowl lettuce, herbs, radiccio, juicy spring onions, and Tom Thumb lettuces. This one also has edible flowers which allegedly double up as pest control (marigold and nasturtium) but I like the splash of colour as well.

That’s all from the garden for the time being. What have you been growing? Any success stories?

You can hang out at home with some music or a good book, scarfing down home made ice lollies and granitas, or sipping some cloudy lemonade or ginger beer. If you have outside space then a few tea lights twinkling away in old jam jars are all you need to sit out on warm evenings.

Or head to any of the parks with a cheap rug or mat and a home made picnic. I know there are a few park poseur types who spend a fortune on blankets, hampers and fancy plates, but it can all be done on a shoestring and to hell with keeping up with the Joneses. The only thing that’s really worth spending a little extra on is a good vacuum flask that keeps things piping hot (or icy cool, if you prefer) and is leak-proof and fairly robust. Have a quiet one with the papers, or add plenty of friends and a few beers, it’s perfect either way.

When the weather’s warmer you can take off and do loads of different free walks, ranging from a short slacker-ish ramble to a full-on yomp, depending upon your preference. You can also get out of town for very little with various special travel offers and off-peak advance fares. I recently had a return trip to Brighton for £5, which made for a perfect day out, including a wander down the seafront and some loafing about on the beach.

While the big ticketed day and weekend festivals get a lot of press, there are also hundreds of free events to get yourself along to, with happenings to suit every taste. There’s always something free to try down at the Southbank, and there are plenty of outdoor fairs and festivals that have heaps of stalls and entertainments and cost nothing to attend, from Lewisham People’s Day to Notting Hill Carnival.

The main collections of most museums and art galleries are free, and many regularly have late evenings which are filled with interesting creative programmes (the easiest thing is to sign up for their mailing lists). Or head out to some or free or subsidised gigs, outdoor theatre, or even the BBC Proms (prices start at around £5).

Who cares if we’re broke, let’s have fun anyway.

The best parts of the book for me were the chapters on cleaning tips, such as general time-saving ideas, laundry products, toxic chemicals in the average home, humane pest control, kitchen and bathroom hygiene, and a comprehensive stain removal guide. There’s also an excellent long section towards the end of the book where the author includes many of her newspaper ‘agony aunt / cleaning guru’ Q&As.

If I absolutely had to find fault with this book, I could perhaps say that the small section about nutrition doesn’t sit very well with the subject matter that surrounds it. It’s nicely written and obviously is a subject that has great personal meaning to the author, but I suspect it might be better as a separate article or even as a different book. This niggle is very minor though, and other readers may disagree.

To sum up: I would recommend this ebook to anyone as a handy, expert and detailed reference on household management and cleaning. It is also reasonably priced.

Done and Dusted by Stephanie Zia is available from Blackbirdebooks, price £4.69 (includes VAT), and also from the Apple iBookstore.

 *****

COMPETITION TIME!! We have a copy of Done and Dusted to give away to one lucky winner. It’s open to anyone who has a valid email address, including those outside the UK. All you have to do is answer the following question by leaving the correct answer in the comments box below. Winner will be drawn at random at noon on Friday, 14^th of May.

 The question is: Which newspaper is Stephanie Zia the Cleaning Guru for?

 Good luck!

Only a few so far, but let’s wait and see. On to the crazy cucumber plant, which is now sprouting lots of yellow flowers (which hopefully means heaps of mini cucumbers starting soon):

Both those plants are getting too big for the windowsill, unfortunately. I think I’m going to have to get them into bigger pots and get them used to the great outdoors over the next couple of weeks.

The chervil and the dill have already been outdoors a few times, going back into the greenhouse at night. We’ve been eating them too.

The tomato plants are looking kind of scruffy, but apparently that’s normal.

The experimental pot with spinach, land cress and rocket is now growing quite well – the land cress is probably the happiest:

We have some nearly-there spring onions too:

As for the rest of it, the cut-and-come-again salad leaves haven’t grown back (surprise!), the second crop of pea shoots have grown back (slowly but surely), and the basil and parsley are very happy. We ate all the alfalfa (nicer than I remembered) and radish shoots, but might do some more next week.

Are you growing any herbs or veggies indoors? How are they doing?

Meanwhile, back on the windowsill, the not-so-dwarf beans are about to burst into flower. And they’re too tall to go into the greehouse, so maybe I’ll have to put them out in a bigger pot on the back doorstep soon.

Here’s the alfalfa, nearly ready to eat. Maybe needs a couple more days. I suspect that this will be a lifesaver in the winter when not much else will grow – it’s quick and it’s healthy, it’s easy to grow (just rinse daily and drain) and it costs pence. OK, maybe it’s not what everyone would call gourmet, but it’s good for a bit of variety.

We’ve had a couple of home-grown salads in the last week. One was a gorgeous mix of pea shoots, baby lettuce and radish microgreens. The pea shoots are re-growing already:

Last week I also learned that some cheap brands of dried peas can be used for pea shoots, including ‘Leo’ brand. They’re 26p a packet in Asda at the moment, or 27p in Tesco, if your local one stocks that type. When I finally get my hands on some I’ll be growing them by the trayful.

The lettuce is supposed to be a ‘cut and come again’ Salad Bowl, but I have my doubts about its ability to regenerate. Seriously, look at the state of it:

We didn’t eat all the radish sprouts – here’s what’s left of the first big batch. They were delicious. Greenhouse or not, I think these, along with cress, pea shoots and herbs, will always have a home on the widowsill.

The land cress, spinach and rocket experiment is not doing much at all. Fingers crossed that at least the rocket will grow this week – it’s like a weed outdoors.

Those spring onions have got their act together now:

Some of the many tomato plants:

I think I’ll grow a couple of them indoors anyway, in case of blight. And finally, the cucumber plant seems set to make an escape bid. Either that or it’s doing an impression of Dustin Hoffman at the end of The Graduate. Not sure which.

Are you growing your own food this year? Do you have any success stories?

My other new addition is some closely-sown radish seeds to try growing them as microgreens:

The pot that was new last week is doing OK now – spinach at top left, rocket top right, land cress at the bottom:

Those Salad Bowl lettuces have revived after their recent strop:

While the spring onions have improved, I think they take too long to grow and probably use up too much space that could be given over to faster or more expensive crops.

My crazy beans got even crazier. I’m going to have to cut one of them back:

Cucumber plants doing really well:

The biggest chore of the weekend was pricking out all the tomato plants and potting them up. They all germinated, all grew OK, and all seem to be fine in their new pots. Which, I think, is rather unusual. Here are eight of the 32 surviving plants:

Something tells me I might have a few tomato plants to give away next month. Just a few…

Thinking about sowing anything, or buying some seedlings? What’s growing itself silly on your windowsill this week?

Quite a tall order, but she makes rather a good job of it. What’s unusual about it is her planting style – seemingly higgledy-piggledy and all chucked in together, but it all seems to work. Herbs, flowers, fruit bushes and veggies all rub shoulders happily and prettily.

Alys Fowler is an experienced gardener, and the level of knowledge passed on in this book is really quite something. I’m no slouch, but have learned so much about garden microclimates, soil improvement, and getting the maximum amount of crops out of a small space by selecting the best varieties of plant and growing them in succession in small batches. There are lots of detailed descriptions of plants in here that I’ve never heard of, let alone grown before, and they look really interesting to try.

The book also covers cooking, freezing and preserving, all very handy if you have a glut and want to save produce to tide you over the winter and the hungry gap in early spring. There’s an excellent directory and further reading section at the back.

While there are many great pictures in The Edible Garden, I did find that there were a few too many of Alys looking cute among out-of-focus foliage. I would really have liked to have seen an illustration of every type of plant mentioned in the book instead, as that’s of more use to me. I also spotted a fair few typos in the book, such as ‘chicken coup’ instead of ‘chicken coop’ and so on. I do hope the chickens aren’t free range radicals plotting revolution round the back of the shed, and fingers crossed these mistakes get weeded out of the next edition.

To sum up: A very attractive book with a slightly unusual agenda, packed with excellent information. Probably best for someone who’s done a little gardening before and wants to get a serious project going this year.

COMPETITION: You can win your very own copy of The Edible Garden by Alys Fowler, plus a mini selection of seeds so you can get growing your own. The whole selection is suitable for growing in a small garden or in pots, and most of the varieties have been recommended by Alys herself. You will get:

• Peas x 20 (Greenshaft)
• French beans x 2 (Dwarf Tendergreen)
• Runner beans x 2 (Scarlet Emperor)
• Tomato x 20 (Gardener’s Delight)
• Radish x 80 (40 x Cherrybelle, 40 x French Breakfast)
• Swiss Chard x 20 (Rainbow)
• Rocket x 50 (non-wild)
• Lettuce x 30 (mixed Salad Bowl, red & green)
• Cucumber x 2 (Marketmore)
• Carrot x 30 (Paris Market)
• French marigold x 20
• Basil x 30 (Sweet Genovese)

All the growing instructions are available here.

*****

To be in with a chance of getting the whole lot of these goodies, all you have to do is find the answer to the following question, and write it in the comments box below: The first Edible Garden TV show aired on BBC2 two days ago. What was the subject of the first show? For a tiny hint try here.

*****

Competition closes midnight Tuesday 13th April 2010. Correct entries go into a prize draw. This prize is for entrants in the UK only (sorry to those outside the UK, although it might cheer you up to hear that there will be a competition for international entrants coming in the next few days).

Then I read the whole thing from cover to cover, and decided that it’s much more practical in the tone of the writing and in its scope than a first glance would suggest. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that it would be an excellent choice for anyone with a small amount of outside space who’d really like to ‘do up’ their garden, but who has no idea where to start. The author’s wealth of experience is clear to see.

The emphasis is fairly firmly on hiring a garden designer and/or a landscaper to create your garden for you, but the book does get you to think very thoroughly about everything you want and need from it once it’s finished, whether that’s somewhere to throw big parties or just a place to sit quietly with a book or simply hang out the washing.

The garden at Golightly Towers was put together very badly by the previous owners and is now starting to come apart at the seams. This book has given me the confidence I need to draw up a sensible budget so that we can start saving up to get things fixed in the next year or two, and I also have a much better understanding of how we need the space to ‘work’ for us in both a functional and aesthetic sense.

Swift points out several times that you can’t cram too much into a small plot if you want it to look good, and runs you through several ideas to help you sort out your priorities. There are many design solutions and professional tips, plus notes about physical structuring and planting. The planting section will probably not be enough for experienced gardeners but is more than adequate for someone who’s just starting out.

Then there’s more of a ‘lifestyle’ section, with ideas about eating outdoors, sunbathing and shade, growing your own food, and simple ways to make seasonal changes. There are even some quick wins that can be tried to speedily improve the appearance of the garden if time and resources are limited. This is followed by a section on the seasonal maintenance that’s needed to keep different types of garden looking good.

I really liked the handy list of suppliers at the back of the book. The only thing I thought was missing was half a page or so of references for further book or internet research about design and planting, as it’s the sort of publication that makes you feel inspired to learn and do more.

My only real gripe about the book is that the first few pages have been designed with almost completely unbroken text and very little white space – these are very hard on the eye indeed and create a sensation of being unable to breathe between paragraphs, which is a shame as the introduction is well worth reading. Fortunately the page design greatly improves after this, getting all the useful points across much better.

Produced by Quadrille Publishing Limited, RRP £12.99

So I thought I’d better try sowing a few more salad/veg seeds, preferably things we haven’t seen yet. Here’s a pot with rocket at the top, spinach on the bottom left, and American land cress just starting to sprout on the bottom right:

I also had some free Little Gem and Serrano chili seeds that I stuck into a couple of pots but they’re not sprouting yet, so maybe next week… But for now, on with the show. Ta-daaaaa, more magic beans:

Thinning out the lettuce taught me a few things:

• Lettuces don’t like being moved about
• Lettuces don’t like being left in the sun
• Lettuces don’t like being too warm

Here they are being a bit finnicky:

Started a new batch of pea shoots:

The mustard greens aren’t doing much, apart from losing their first set of leaves:

The spring onions look suspiciously like anaemic chives, so they have until next week to butch up:

I should probably pot on these overcrowded tomato seedlings:

The cayenne chili pepper is looking OK after being repotted:

I have high hopes for at least one of the cucumber plants surviving and growing well under glass:

The herbs – mint, chervil, dill and basil are all growing in the right direction now too:

I’ve swapped a few excess seeds for a load of alfalfa, but that hasn’t arrived yet. As soon as it does I’ll make some kind of seed/bean sprouter for the windowsill garden and see how that works out.

Are you growing any veg or herbs on your windowsill? If not, are you thinking about it? Any success stories so far this month?

Chandra grew up in an unpleasantly cluttered-up environment and shows great empathy for, and understanding of, people who end up mired in overwhelming, seemingly-insurmountable mess. Much of the book is given over to exploring and dealing with the wide variety of personal fears, anxieties, mental health issues, unhelpful beliefs and unfinished business that can lead us to surround ourselves with ‘noise’, clutter and sometimes even squalor. The author’s voice is humane and warm, as well as being honest and practical. While there is some necessary straight talking you’re unlikely to feel that you’re being barked at, told off or pushed around, which is often the case with some of the other writing in this genre.

Rather than going straight for the daunting big picture, the author starts with something we’re all good at – not losing our toothbrush. Nearly everyone keeps their toothbrush close to where it’s used and near to other things that relate to the task in hand, such as the toothpaste, and it’s easy to clean up or put away after use. So far, so easy. There are then several different exercises that involve relocating your belongings to the most convenient places, grouping them with other related objects, getting rid of items that are no longer useful to you, and making it easy to tidy things away completely after use. These all help to build good habits and self confidence, going one room or even one shelf at a time.

A large chunk of ‘Banish Clutter Forever’ is devoted to getting your life more organised, rather than tidying up your material possessions. This gives the book an extra dimension, looking at your hopes, interests and aspirations, and providing a series of simple steps you can take to bring more enjoyment into your life, rather than spending all your time being reactive or getting bogged down in everyday mundanities.

This book is not about voluntary simplicity, it’s not about giving away almost all of your worldly goods, and best of all it’s not about following any cod philosphy or new age mumbo jumbo. It’s insightful, empowering and very practical, which works for me.

Published by Vermillion, RRP £7.99.