My new book, Eat Your Front Garden, is now available from most online and physical bookshops, as well as direct from the publisher: prospectbooks.co.uk/products…

My annual Morning Star round-up of gardening books: morningstaronline.co.uk/arti… Hope you enjoy it. (My own gardening book is also still available: prospectbooks.co.uk/products…)

My liquorice is in flower. It's a nice plant, very easy to grow, but it is an enthusiastic spreader, so careful where you plant it.

I keep meaning to tidy this area up, but … This is a common malva (Malva sylvestris); nice flowers and it’s a very useful green vegetable. Here, it’s self-sown in about quarter of an inch of leaf litter on top of concrete!

The good king henry (Chenopodium bonus-henricus) has come back well this spring. Looks lovely and fresh. Must admit though – I’ve been growing it for about 30 years, but I hardly ever eat it!

The flowers of Rosemary are edible and palatable. For reasons best known to themselves, they taste of ginger.

In my book I bang on at some length about the necessity of staking dahlias solidly so that they don't go over in the August storms. One day I really must read that bloody chapter myself ...

The edible lupins are coming into bloom. Pretty flowers, followed by tasty beans. Note that these are special edible ones, bought from realseeds.co.uk/lupins.html – most lupins aren’t edible.

My Canna has come back beautifully from its winter dormancy. I'm going to keep it indoors for another week or so, though, because the nights still feel cold enough for a sharp frost. The rhizomes make a useful starchy vegetable.

Sagae is always the first of my hostas to re-emerge in spring. It's my favourite for eating, too, and good-looking.

"Including a few plants in a bare front garden could reduce your stress levels as much as 8 weekly mindfulness sessions, new research by the Royal Horticultural Society and a collaboration of Universities (Sheffield, Westminster and Virginia) has shown." rhs.org.uk/press/releases/Sc…