The weather is dank and dark, the heating still isn’t working and the dog refuses to recall but I find I drift easily away from all of these petty everyday issues when I think of summer and the bumper soft fruit crops I hope we’re going to get. I’ve become increasingly irritated by supermarket soft […]
Read MorePretty unimpressive before planting You know the old saying “too good to be true”? Well I think I may have fallen for the marketing hype on some raspberry plants to replace my old Raspberry canes. They claim to be trailing or tumbling canes that you can grow in hanging baskets. This makes me suspicious in the […]
Read MoreI sometimes wonder if people with an allotment or vegetable beds in their garden face the same complications that I do when it comes to deciding what to plant where. Even if I’d been growing my own plants from seed rather than cheating and didn’t have to wait for the plug plants to be shipped […]
Read MoreLast year I decided to try to grow peas and beans in recycled shopper bags. It didn’t really work. The bags didn’t hold their shape and so the bean and peas couldn’t scramble up the supporting canes properly. My harvest was pretty minute but what I did get was utterly delicious. So with that in […]
Read MoreAmazingly, some of the pineberries that I planted in my hanging bag are coming back to life. Better still, they’re actually starting to fruit! It’s important to cover the plants with straw or glass over the winter to protect them, as they’re rather fragile and delicate. I failed to do so, being occupied with the […]
Read MoreMy side return is, by definition, narrow. And the raised beds that I have there (filled with garlic and rhubarb) are currently performing very nicely. I have eight varieties of garlic in there, and three of rhubarb. The side return is technically south facing but it’s so narrow that the sun hits it for about […]
Read MoreWarbled (badly) to the tune of Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive”At first I was afraid, I was petrifiedBrought home from RHS Wisley (that plant shop outside)And then I spent all winter long, feeling sorry for myselfIn the cloche I’d hide, feeling safer there insideI took my time, I will surviveFor a while there I looked […]
Read MoreI have a certain fondness for gooseberries, something that I think is shown by the fact that I’ve squeezed five bushes (two green hinnomakis, two red hinnomakis and a trusty old invicta) into my tiny space. They’re marvelous things, gooseberries, useful for everything from a liquor to liven up fizz through to pies. They’re one […]
Read MoreLast week I was in a rush to take the GarlicBaby to the local aquarium. I was putting the babyseat into the taxi when I turned my ankle on an uneven bit of pavement and broke my foot. Apparently I have a Lisfranc injury, which is pretty appallingly bad when you consider that it happened […]
Read MoreChives, primrose, buckleaf sorrel and mint When I think of a harvest of home-grown produce, I think of flat baskets brimming with vegetables. I think of pretty china bowls overflowing with fat, lucious sweet berries. I think of happy people climbing ladders in orchards to pick fruit. However, I started late this year. It’s already […]
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London to Land Girl 