Category: garden
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summer fading garden update
I’m both relieved and concerned to see that I’m not the only one whose garden has really struggled this year. I planted peas, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, chilies, aubergines, pumpkins, melons, cucumbers… My tomatoes have just about survived, but they needed a bigger container than usual. Any in a smaller pot shrivelled up and died. The…
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Tomatoes!!!
My babies!!!! They’re growing! I love tomatoes. They’re essential for so much cooking: casserole, stew, pasta bake, chilli, curry… The sad thing is, when you’re gardening you have to expect that only 10% of your seeds are going to do okay. I planted so many tomatoes – enough that the garden should have been over-run…
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It Looks Bad, But Looks Are Deceiving
In the wake of the heatwave in May, one of my potato patches has started to look pretty horrendous. Thing is, I know it’s okay. There were a couple of garlic plants in there as well as the potatoes and broccoli, and they’re all fading now. This tells me that it’s time to harvest these…
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Magnolia & Maple Blossom Munchies Mid-March
This week I found Norway Maple (Acer platanoides) in full bloom, its zingy lime-yellow blossoms looking like they’d been dyed with fluorescent marker pen. Maple blossoms, apart from Sycamore, are edible and taste like peas. Yum! Norway Maple has leaves much larger than our native Field Maple (Acer campestre). Norway Maple has 7 pointed lobes,…
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Make Ground Elder Soup
This week I’ve been down to the riverside to check on the carpets of Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria). Spoiler alert: it’s not Elder (Sambucus sps). It is, however, very tasty and nutritious. It was brought over as a pot herb by the Romans, and left here to ravage our gardens with its invasive nature ever…
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PLANTING POTATOES
I see lots of posts from people wanting to plant potatoes and asking questions about the process, and when the best time for planting is, so I decided to share my preferences that are based on 50+ years of successful growing.One frequently mentioned time for planting is “Good Friday.” (The Friday before Easter).Since the date…
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Stinging Nettles
Everyone knows Stinging Nettles, they’re everywhere in the UK. They’re a menace, but they’re really good for you, especially for women. Stinging Nettles make amazing compost for the garden, a nutritious feed for farm animals, and have even been used to make fabric in the past! Trust me, if you’re eating it, the stems are…
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Cleaver
Cleavers are bloody brilliant, I pick them every year to make my own multivitamin. I read the other year that, because they don’t count as a food and they don’t count as medicine, the multivitamins you get at the shop aren’t well regulated. So you’re downing pills, thinking it’ll strengthen you, but in reality it…
