What to plant now: 'As a home gardener it is the time to sow your seeds'

With spring almost here, and seeds and seedlings back in supply, it’s the ideal time to get busy in the garden

Farming is the utmost expression of optimism – nature charges ahead despite all the goings on of the human world, and you better keep up. There are really no alternatives. It is a time of manic activity around our farm.

While the growing season in our part of the New South Wales northern rivers region ticks on throughout the entire year, interspersed with green manure rotation, there’s a key indicator we need to start seeding our spring and summer crops. That sign comes from wild native raspberries (Rubus rosifolius). Now, the first canes are establishing on last year’s dieback wood, heralding their humble blossoms. The ground temperature is warming up, and daylight hours are long enough to sustain new growth.

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Inside the five most viewed homes of the summer

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Sit comfortably for this chair debate | Letter

Mary Searle-Chatterjee says it would require a colossal cultural shift in the west to move away from chairs, so better design is the most we can hope for

Sara Hendren’s excellent article (The tyranny of chairs: why we need better design, The long read, 25 August) discusses the health problems produced by chairs. These have spread throughout the world due to the prestige of the west. Imperial officials viewed squatting, and other forms of sitting at ground level, as a mark of inferiority. Many in the west still see it as a sign of backwardness. Sadly in Asia too, sitting on chairs is often seen as a sign of modernity.

In Singapore, in private, people often squat on chairs. In public, people use chairs in the western way. In India, a doctor told me that he found an increase in leg and foot problems among middle-class women who had switched from squatting to standing, or sitting, in their new western-style kitchens. Studies have also found squatting for childbirth leads to easier deliveries.

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Stamp duty holiday sparks home-moving frenzy

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Five top tips for choosing your conveyancer Nottingham Estate Agents

For those who plan to buy or sell a property in the next year, there are some things you can do now to help your property transaction go more smoothly. If you really want to hit the ground running, having already appointed your conveyancer will mean you’ll be ready to go as soon as you’ve […]

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Homes for sale in converted farm buildings – in pictures

From an award-winning seven-bedroom windmill and granary to a two-bedroom ‘bolt-hole’ barn conversion

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Love the flame, not the fuel: should you give up cooking with gas?

Beloved by chefs and home cooks alike, gas burning stovetops come with drawbacks for human, financial and planetary health

Nikki Phillips has made a living cooking in strangers’ kitchens. As the co-owner of a catering company, Shared Affair, she always makes a request before arriving at a client’s home. “I … ask for a picture of the stove, so I know what we’re dealing with.”

If the photos show the clapped out coils of an older electric stove, she goes straight to plan B. “I just bring gas burners with us. I don’t even bother.” Between portable stoves and hot box ovens “we can set up a kitchen inside the kitchen.”

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