Taking cuttings

Summers here the grandchildren have destroyed my lawn and the next doors barbeque smoke is killing my sun flowers.

Oh how I love summer!

Anyway enough grumbling for now, I’ve got important work to do harvesting the cuttings for my next crop of plants and collecting the runner bean seeds for next year.

I always choose healthy, non-flowering new shoots from the shrub and take cuttings of about 3in long.

Then I prepare them by making a straight cut beneath a pair of leaves and then remove several sets of lower leaves, keeping only a couple of leaves at the tip of the cutting.

The next stage is to fill a pot with compost, level and firm. Insert several cuttings around the edge of a pot, keeping their leaves clear of the surface and water well. And then leave cover with a carrier bag and leave in the green house, simple and its saves a fortune.

I always collect the best runner beans to use the seeds for next year that way you get the best possible runner beans, the long suffering just thinks I am being tight.

Watch your seeds

As many as 99 per cent of the seeds in packets are dead, according to a report published by the Consumer magazine Which?

The watchdog tested flower and vegetable seeds from 15 suppliers and found that only six companies met industry standards. The worst offender was Edwin Tucker and Sons Ltd with the test results showing that 99 per cent of its delphinium seeds were dead with the other one per cent unhealthy.

Now, obviously there’s is no way of knowing which seeds are healthy until you have planted them, but here’s my tips for minimising the risk:

Only buy your seeds fresh from a supplier you know well

Make sure you keep them out of the sun

Plant a selection of sizes to get a better range of qualities

And, of course, for the best chance of achieving gardening success – use Rootgrow. I keep telling you!