If you want to buy any of the plants mentioned below for your own  garden, visit www.countrylife.co.uk/nursery and type or copy and paste  the name into the search. Plants are delivered in sturdy boxes in a  matter of days from one of the finest nurseries in the country.

It’s been a wonderful year for vegetables in the garden but you need to make sure you’re keeping up with their development! The grower of courgettes will have to cut them daily, searching among the rasping foliage, to prevent the fruits turning, apparently overnight, into monster marrows, which make for an occasional novelty, but are not always a welcome gift. French and runner beans also need to be rigorously looked over each evening, if possible.

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