You may have noticed that in between the bitingly cold mornings there is a fair bit of sunshine and spring-like-action occurring at the moment. The evenings are lighter. The finches are back. It is gardening time, and this year I’m ready for it. The last growing season has been basically a long, hard learning experience […]
Read More Grow Your Own! Round TwoIt might seem an odd time of year to add to the gardening chapters, there was a scandalous dusting of snow over my poor car this morning for heavens sake who wants to be outside if they don’t have to!?!? Actually, I do, and I have spent some good hours outside recently getting dirty and […]
Read More Grow Your Own- Oh But It’s Cold Outside!It had to happen, right? I had to get something else edible from my first summer of amateur cultivation? Well that something turns out to be carrots, Nantes 5 carrots specifically and I am still reeling in the thrill of that little harvest 2 weeks ago. After tiny onions, sludge ridden herbs and desolated cabbage […]
Read More Grow Your Own- A Triumph of Carrots!There are lessons in life for all and from all things, however the lessons from trying to manage my new garden seem to have turned into something of a beating. It’s all going wrong. The WTF tree previously thought to be an apple is now heavily endowed with bright and utterly rotten plums, oozing with […]
Read More Grow Your Own- A Cruel SummerShow me a happy, relaxed gardener in my part of England at the moment and I will show you a man with only paving and pot plants. Consistent extremes of blazing sun and driving rain have caused exponential growth explosion that would have been a challenge to control if I hadn’t been working the last […]
Read More Grow Your Own- It’s A Jungle Out ThereI can’t imagine that I would have ever believed that the day would come to pass that I would find the lack of the need to buy lettuce so utterly thrilling. I never really bought much of it anyway, it goes soggy in the lunch box and never tastes of much, not to mention the […]
Read More Grow Your Own- The Salad Days*reader warning- more bad language than usual I’ve got a few days off the day job this week and today was always aside for completing my tax return so obviously, here we are with some garden updates! Spring has truly sprung now on the Essex coast which basically means regular rain and mildly chilly evenings […]
Read More Grow Your Own! Pests, plagues and pretties.Good morning Green Fingerers, this post comes to you from a firm plot on the sofa sponsored by the consistent drumming of rain on double glazing. So, another rained off Saturday garden date however I can observe good things from this side of the patio doors. Although inedible, it is consistently satisfying to see a […]
Read More Grow Your Own- If Only We Had DucksSo we find ourselves in chilly March, prime sowing season and maddeningly result free period. This is a time of lingering frosts, extensive reading and furious glares at the lack of fresh green shoots poking up through the crumbly, painstakingly turned earth. Patience is not a virtue I was blessed with, therefore in lieu of […]
Read More Grow Your Own: The Bare Earth TimesI’ve romanticised for many a year on the prospect of home grown produce. Plump green tomatoes jewelling the garden. Straight proud rows of asparagus in tight tidy lines like soldiers. Boozy soft plums you pick a week too late and get drunk on. All the while flapping diaphonously around an immaculately pruned garden with gleaming […]
Read More Grow Your Own!
Food. Boom. 