A Season of Gardening

Priya and Sam have just moved into a 1930s semi in Sheffield. The back garden faces north, on heavy clay. The house shades the beds nearest it for much of the year, and the small vegetable bed sits at the far end, the only part clear of that shadow. Along one side, the neighbour's birch tree overhangs a strip of lawn. At the front, a south-facing path in full sun is where their pots live. Indoors it's the same split: the kitchen at the back looks north, while the front bedrooms get the sun.

They'll face a year of decisions, and each one needs several things you've learned at once: what the soil is doing, where the water is, how much light there is, what the season allows. Their method is simple: look, change one thing, then look again. Some things they won't do themselves: anything up a ladder or in the birch, anything near buried cables or pipes they can't locate, and any chemical they can't identify. Those are for a professional, or not at all.