All about sustainable food production on small spaces plus books and gardens
I can hear you all shouting ‘of course save seed’ and as generations of gardeners have done, I diligently save seed each year because locally-adapted seed is best – or is it? I have saved parsnip seed for the last
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Love walking round the #organic #allotments on the one acre plot and seeing the ingenious #recycling and #repurposing of items on the beds – nothing goes to waste here. The eagle-eyed amongst you will be able to spot pallets, containers,
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There’s been a lot of tweeting around compost in recent weeks; the #peatfree campaign which is vital to saving our peat bogs, biodiversity, climate change and flooding; the risk of #aminopyralid contamination in manures and composts and the growing popularity
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It was a comment from one of the speakers on BBC Radio 4 Farming Today (Sat 15 June) that got me thinking about #nectar, or rather the lack of nectar. The topic of discussion was flea beetles and oilseed rape
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Hurrah, some rain is forecast. I know it’s June and we all want to be outside enjoying the sun and the last thing we want is rain. But 2019 has been a dry year so far. Down in the South
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I’ll never tire of sitting down in the plot on a sunny day to simply watch and listen. Today the phacelia was alive with pollinators, mostly honey bees and bumblebees, while the birds were in full voice. The video says
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For the last few years I have been growing chickpeas (Cicer arietinum) and had a bumper crop in 2018 as the weather was perfect for them. Chickpeas come from the Mediterranean and beyond, so like it warm and dry and
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You don’t see udo (Aralia cordata) very often in the UK. Its a huge Asian perennial ‘vegetable’ that grows to two to three metres in height. It’s also called Japanese Spikenard because of the spiky bristles on the shoots. Being
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What are those yellow flowers? Its a common question asked by visitors to the plot at this time of year. The eye-catching flowers that tower above everything else are parsnips. It’s a shame that more don’t keep their parsnips in
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Last week I popped along to the #NGS open day at Homeacres – Charles Dowding’s no dig garden in Somerset. I have visited before but not at this time of year, so it was good to see the beds early
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