Life & Style

Homes & Interiors/Gardens

  • For those of you fortunate enough to have a plot of your own, no matter the size, the great outdoors is but a few steps away, so when circumstances forbid a longer expedition you can be in the open air within seconds.

  • Spot the odd one out: Jayne Mansfield, James Brown, Nina Simone, the Scottish Rock Gardening Club (SRGC).

  • A time when last year's stock of stored vegetables is finished and new crops haven't come on stream, the hungry gap provides few pickings from the garden.

  • When carefully chosen and planted, wallflowers add vibrant colours and scent to the garden throughout and sometimes beyond spring.

  • In his latest book, Homegrown Revolution, James Wong includes many new and unexpected edibles.

Outdoors/Leisure

Technology

  • You could be forgiven for not thinking about central heating at the moment but, with ever-rising bills, it pays to look ahead.

  • An inflatable air mattress can be a boon for any camping trip, days at the beach or even to provide occasional sleeping space for visitors.

  • My obsession with weather monitoring started a decade ago when I moved out of the city and took an interest in grown-up concerns such as when the plants needed watered or when the pipes in the garage were likely to freeze.

  • A couple of weeks ago I tested Roomba from iRobot, a gadget that vacuums while you're out.

  • In 1996 – before the advent of movie downloads, e-book readers or Apple's iTunes – Microsoft's Bill Gates made an astute observation: "Content is king: it's where I expect much of the real money will be made on the internet."