Questions and answers

Val answers two commonly asked gardening questions

- Val Bourne

Pungent marigolds are used to deter pests from attacking vegetable crops, but does this work?

I WAS doing a talk on growing vegetables recently. I've grown vegetables all my life, because I was born in the pre-war ‘Dig for Victory' era. Money was tight and food was in short supply, so lots of suburban London gardens had a vegetable patch and some even kept chickens. I've carried on growing my own vegetables organically ever since, because I can eat super-fresh food and save money. My Yorkshire grandmother, Lucy Elizabeth Hardy, would be proud of me!

Charles Dowding, one of the pioneers of 'no-dig' gardening

I trained as a teacher in Birmingham during the mini-skirt era - which makes me feel very old. I went for plenty of interviews, all unsuccessful, and it think it was the pelmet skirt! When a job came up at the National Vegetable Research Station in Wellesbourne, Warwickshire, off I went and weeks later my plant breeder boss told me that I'd got the job because of my legs! I carried on growing vegetables when I was a poor parent of two daughters who could eat for England, and now it's a way of life.

Val planting broad beans in one of her no-dig vegetable beds