Stoney Road Gardens Association

Brassicas are unpopular with some gardeners because they are seen as disease-prone. Tidy gardeners may also object to overwintering varieties which are still cropping (read: getting in the way?) in April. On the other hand, this is a varied and nutritious vegetable group, and if have room and don't mind a few overgrown purple sprouting plants, you can be harvesting some type of brassica almost all year round...

Carrots are often recommended as an easy crop for novice gardeners, but I have always found them rather tricky. Germination can be slow and erratic, slugs love the seedlings, and of course, the dreaded carrot fly can ruin whole rows...Here is a sugested sowing regime for harvesting throughout the year.

Every year in early January, the more seasonally-aware food pages of British newspapers start waxing lyrical about rhubarb. To food writers desperately in search of something simple yet elegant to cleanse the nation’s jaded pallets after the annual Christmas blow-out, forced English rhubarb must seem like manna from Heaven. The startlingly pink straight stem, combined with the crumpled yellow leaves, and a taste that, unsweetened, would strip the enamel from your teeth, is in season from January to March, making it the perfect antidote to the excesses of the festive period.

Many gardeners confine themselves to growing just a few tried and tested potato varieties every year, taking account of the standard classification by harvesting season - first and second earlies, early and late maincrop. This article explores the possibility of a second way of classifying potatoes by culinary use: salad, boil, mash, bake or roast, fry.

In September 2008 the SRGA held a ‘blind’ tasting of 25 samples of tomato, including a few repetitions. They were assessed for taste, texture and appearance first by four external judges: a local gardening journalist, the owner of an Italian restaurant, an Italian buyer of ingredients for restaurants and a market trader, and then by members of the public. There was close agreement in ranking between the specialist judges and the public, though the former were harsher in their marking – as listed below.