Hackney Council has suddenly imposed an annual subscription for having garden waste collected, to take effect from 6th May but lasting initially until 31st March 2025.

While it's fair to charge the relatively small…

De Beauvoir Gardeners' group (which is open to all Hackney residents) started this project as part of Chelsea Fringe, which began in 2012 - but we didn't intend it to begin and end with the three weeks for which the Fringe officially ran this year.

Our idea was to use the Fringe project to kick-start a street and estate planting initiative across as…

Having wanted to do this for years but been put off by the difficulty of installing the older, barrel-shaped tanks in a restricted space where we'd have had to dig too deep, too close for comfort to this old house's non-existent foundations, I jumped at the chance to buy one of the new shallow tanks this spring.

Of course, the weather made it impossible to finish digging out the pit for most of the first few weeks after the tank arrived but I'm now almost there - just a bit of…