Our green-fingered correspondent continues her handy A-Z of the pitfalls and pleasures of gardening

Each year, Anna raids her garden to create a gorgeous centrepiece for the Christmas feast.

Cabbage dispatch

What to do

What to do

From pretty bamboo cloches to keep off the rabbits, to a year's worth of allotment plants...

Anna has sifted through the season's publications to find the finest gardening books for Christmas presents. First up, a must-have for tree fans

There's a whole separate category of presents, aren't there, which we could just call "sigh presents". Gifts that just seem designed to make  you depressed at the effort which has been wasted on them.

Our green-fingered correspondent Anna Pavord continues her series of pests and problems standing between you and your perfect garden.

What to do

Main image: bee station, £39.99, Firebox; bird, £185, The Shop Floor Project

t's amazing. When I started eight or nine years ago, I kept trying to talk to people about it and no one was even slightly interested." Luke Dixon, urban beekeeper, laughs as he tries to explain his joy and astonishment at finding the rest of the world suddenly fascinated by his solitary hobby.

I think I might be going a bit granny doolally where Alan Titchmarsh is concerned. It could be the signs of impending old age, because I didn't always love the Titch. For a start, he appeared on my TV radar just after the tragic death of committedly green Gardeners' World presenter Geoff Hamilton.

Bletting. It's not your average sort of conversational word. But talk to Mark Diacono, the owner and sole proprietor of Otter Farm in Devon, and it works its way in pretty quick. Because "bletting" is what everyday folk do to their medlars – a hard, tart fruit if eaten raw – to make them edible. Effectively, it means leaving them lying around for a week or two to rot ever so slightly. Sounds disgusting, tastes delicious. And Diacono is on a one-man quest at this time of year: to get more of us bletting.

Now is the perfect time to plant a new tree but you need to choose well – and put in the after-care, says Anna Pavord