It’s an attractive plant with large, lobed leaves up to a metre long and good sized heads that take on a violet shade as they ripen. 

Globe artichokes are best planted as started seedlings in trenches 20 centimetres deep, lined with two or three centimetres of compost or rotted manure.

While it does best in rich, sandy loam, the artichoke will grow in any kind of soil, so long as it is trenched and well-manured.

Cut away all but six suckers that develop at the base when the plant reaches 20 centimetres, and transplant them to make a new row.

Plant these singly 60 centimetres apart, in rows at least a metre apart.

The young suckers should be protected from hot sun.

In the autumn, cut the plants back to the ground and they will reappear next season.

During hot weather they will thrive if given good waterings with liquid manure.

Half way through the growing season, put a handful of blood and bone around the base of each plant and water well.

When harvesting, cut the head with a couple of centimetres of stalk attached.

They should be cut when green and half-grown, otherwise they become tough and stringy.

Although it has a slight resemblance in taste, the globe artichoke is completely unrelated to the jerusalem artichoke, which grows as a tuber beneath the soil and is a member of the sunflower family.

Limonium perezii, ‘perezii blue’, is a striking perennial growing to about 60 centimetres high and 40 centimetres wide that is great for dry gardens, rockeries, embankments and retaining walls. It can also be grown in containers, small narrow spaces and as part of pool side landscaping.

Often called sea lavender, it grows an evergreen mound of attractive foliage and has tall clusters of small deep purple flowers for much of the year. It does best in full sun and well drained soil.

The flowers make a long lasting cut floral display and both fresh and dried flowers retain their colour over a long period.

We all know what legumes are, but do we know why they are so valuable in our gardens?

Leguminous plants, including peas, beans and clover, are unique in harbouring nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their root nodules. These fix nitrogen from the air for plant use.

Legumes are the best soil-building crops. And for farmers they are the best forage crops, supplying more protein, calcium and vitamins A and D that any other roughage.

Alfalfa, for instance, can give high yields of protein year after year without being fertilised with nitrogen.

One hectare of legumes will take as much nitrogen from the air as is contained in 25 tonnes of manure.

In the garden, legumes furnish more nitrogen to our plants than manure and other fertilisers combined.

The bacteria which perform this marvel are called rhizobia. These form nodules on the roots. Inside these nodules, the rhizobia draw energy from the plant and, in return, supply it with nitrogen fixed from the air.

Since this process slows down or stops in the presence of nitrogen fertiliser, most legumes don’t respond to nitrogen fertilisers such as blood and bone.

Legumes are particularly valuable for digging in as green manure.

The best time to do this is before they flower because then they are most leafy and richest in nitrogen.

Even after we have finished harvesting our peas and beans, we can dig the spent plants in and they will enrich the soil.

Lupins are legumes, so are fenugreek, soybeans, lima beans, peanuts, lentils and carob, and broom, baptisia, anthyllis and lathyrus.​