Joyce Russell

9 results

Adam Bermingham with his daughters Erica and Niamh at their home in Churchtown. Photograph: Crispin Rodwell/The Irish Times
A scientist’s experimental garden with its very own weather station

Adam Bermingham’s approach to gardening has always been endearingly boffinish Much like the neat 1940s bungalow to which it belongs, Adam Bermin(...)

A garden polytunnel. Photograph: Richard Johnston
Polytunnel power: How to grow the best summer veg and fruit

In a world turned suddenly upside-down, food-growing is a wonderful way to anchor ourselves in safer waters and weather out the storm. In particular, (...)

Pots of young seedlings ready to be pricked out. Photograph: Richard Johnston
Gardening for beginners: How to sow and grow for the first time

While coronavirus has brought many traumatic changes to our world, it has also served as a powerful reminder of how intimately our lives are bound to (...)

Wild about Weeds, Garden Design with Rebel Plants by Jack Wallington
The best gardening books to give this Christmas

The late Beth Chatto revolutionised the gardening world with her ecological approach to garden design as well as with her painterly eye for subtle, un(...)

Joyce Russell: lifelong gardening passion began in her childhood in the Yorkshire dales. Photograph: Ben Russell
How to turn any patch into a glorious vegetable garden

If there’s one lesson that gardening teaches – and in truth it teaches many – it’s that none of us comes into this world a great gardener; instead we (...)

Young sweet-pea plants climbing up willow supports
The soil is awake so get going in the garden

Spring, they say, is the time for new beginnings, and nowhere more so than in the garden. So if you’re in need of some inspiration, here are some idea(...)

When it comes to fruit, container-grown fig trees and strawberries are a great choice for small tunnels while for larger polytunnels, consider grape-vines or cordon/espalier/fan-trained peach, apricot or nectarine trees,
Preparations for a polytunnel, from soil to seed trays – and don’t forget the hammock

If you’re one of the many Irish gardeners who has joined the country’s merry band of polytunnel owners in recent months (see last week’s column), the(...)

Tunnel vision

If you belong to that growing band of Irish gardeners who are proud owners of a polytunnel, then this is the month when the latter should, by rights, (...)

Swiss chard ‘Bright Lights’. Photograph: Richard Johnston
Garden to plate

Coming from a family of fiercely competitive kitchen gardeners, August has always been the time of year when we literally put it all on the table, the(...)