News - Page 79

Look out for apple festivals at gardens, orchards, village centres and National Trust properties across the country. The biggest of them all is the Apple Festival on October 13^th and 14^th at the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale Farm in Kent, home to an astonishing 2,200 different varieties of apple – the largest collection in the world.

Harvest winter squash to store for winter, filling your shelves with rich, flavour-packed fruits to turn into hearty casseroles, soups, roasts and bakes right through the coldest months of the year.

Choose from traditional spray chrysanthemums, grown for cut flowers, or hardy varieties which flower their socks off through October and November, when everything else is retiring for winter.

Get the ground ready now for laying new lawns as now is the best time of year to sow grass seed or lay turf, while the air and soil are still warm and there are gentle autumn rains to help roots establish quickly.​

It may seem ghoulish to grow plants which trap and eat other living organisms from flies and wasps to ants, spiders and other creepy crawlies, but carnivorous plants are a fascinating group which can also play a useful role in controlling your garden pests.