New gardeners should start out slowly

Inexperienced gardeners need to learn how to walk before they can run with regard to their horticultural activities, it has been suggested.

According to an article in Huntingdon Town Crier, there is a tendency among people who are not used to growing their own food or gardening to attempt too much before they have the skills to succeed.

Greenhouse staging and glasshouses are commonly used as way of growing food and plants more efficiently but many new gardeners lack the patience to become a genuine horticulturalist, the correspondent argues.

Former TV gardening expert Stephen Green told the Town Criers reporter: "New gardeners should not try to take on too much at once.

"They will only find it all too much and then give up."

Meanwhile, the Tyrone Times resident expert Anthony Quinn has advised his readers that a small and well-kept vegetable bed will always be more productive than a large equivalent that is overrun with weeds.