Grow Your Own- Zombie Celery and The Wilding

Due to the lack of garden centre availability during lock down and, ok fine, the fact that I am a terrible hoarder I have been forced this spring to go through my current seed stash rather than hit the shops for new growing ideas. The usual suspects started in a line up of herbs, squashes […]

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Grow Your Own- Tips for The Unsuccessful

Ah Spring is springing, the birds are singing and the daffs are up despite the fact that it is still blowing an icy gale every other day. Responsible and organised grow-your-own types are already well along with their heated propagators and other such clever cold weather jobs. Me, well, not so much. I spent […]

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Grow Your Own! Get A Plan.

Ah, Happy Spring Time foodie friends! The daffs are out. There isn’t a predicted frost for the next two weeks and it’s almost pancake day. It’s time to get planting. I donned my wellies this morning for maybe the third time in 2019, but those other times were purely weeding and compost hefting so in […]

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Grow Your Own- A Meagre Harvest

It has been a funny old year for this home grower, and not one riddled with successes. Blame the Beast From The East. Blame the ridiculously hot summer dry spell. Blame it on the Boogie whilst yumming up the last of the rhubarb and gooseberry jam. That was bloody good jam, and before I get […]

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Grow Your Own- The Boring British Heatwave

Drip down, oh heavens, from above, and let the clouds pour down righteousness!* If you hadn’t heard, it’s been hot lately. Hot and dry, and in my neck of the woods it hadn’t rained in something like nine million weeks until a feeble downpour on Friday night, followed by a flash torrential downpour for about […]

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Rhubarb & Gooseberry Jam

It’s been something of a pleasure this summer to start hauling in bumper bundles from the garden, especially when it seemed with the late frosts and recently ridiculous dry spell in the UK that a lot of my fruit and veg is either very behind or given up the ghost entirely. Not so with the […]

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Killer Gooseberry Chutney

A year or so ago I tried my luck with a couple of Hinnonmaki Red Gooseberry plants to fill in a space recently vacated by a big ugly Red Robin 70s kitsch shrubbery horror. I got about three cups of small berries from them last year, which went into a Christmas gin infusion that was […]

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Grow Your Own! Pulling Up Daisies

If you are one of those mere mortals trying to have a full time job and a life whilst also being the primary care giver to a garden space, chances are you’re either a wee bit stressed right now. That or you have given up all forms of social activity not involving deadheading or nematode […]

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Grow Your Own! Caretaking and Damage Control

I’ll bet that if you could get the statistics up, one of the least spoken phrases in my neck of the woods lately would be “Oooh, it’s nice outside.” Because it isn’t. It’s been a Game Of Thrones esque winter here, cruelly punctuated with tricksy odd days of sunshine to make the crippling cold and […]

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Grow Your Own! A Winter’s Tale

Looking out at my garden this morning after our second proper frost in sunny Essex, I am (perhaps over dramatically) put in mind somewhat of tales of winters on the Somme. There’s a lot of mud, you see. My planning was a bit out this year in terms of maintenance and removal of edibles and […]