All about sustainable food production on small spaces plus books and gardens
It’s the time of year when the allotmenteers at Empire Farm are planning the year ahead, seed catalogues are out and planting plans in preparation. Like much of the country, the weather has been very wetover the last few months,
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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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