A Little Piece of Gardening History

I just bought a little piece of gardening history. The best thing about it is that I didn’t know how interesting it was when I bought it. It’s the Ryder’s Vegetable and Flower Seed Book for 1948. That’s a seed catalogue to you and I. Beautiful ain’t it? I just love the faded colour in […]

When to Pick Peas

Yesterday, I picked my first Peas. Most of them were delicious. However, there was the odd pod or two that didn’t quite taste as good as the rest. But why? The answer is I’d left them on the plant just a tad too long. What you’re looking for is Peas that are round and green […]

Photo Misson: Summer Pairs

Here’s your next photo mission. Take a photo of your favourite summer pairings. It has to be something you grew (edible of course) paired with your favourite accompaniment. As you can see I like to settle down on my deck, in the evening, with a massive bowl of Strawberries and a glass of chilled rosé. […]

What to do with White Currants?

Ever since I watched the Victorian Kitchen Garden DVD I have had a micro obsession with White Currants. No Victorian garden would have been without its White Currant bush and so in my quest to copy the Victorian’s (albeit on a tiny scale) I planted a bush the year before last. It didn’t do much […]

Gingerbread Biscuits for Babies

Okay, so maybe this recipe doesn’t strictly use anything that I actually grew. But I’m including it here for three reasons; firstly, because there aren’t many recipes online specifically for baby biscuits (normal biscuits with tons of sugar in them, yes, but baby biscuits well not really). Secondly, I’m fed up of spending money on […]

Strawberry Time

After the disappointment of the last few days I thought I would cheer myself up with a sweet little summer treat – yep, hold the front page, the Strawberries are ready! There’s nothing quite like that first taste of juicy, sweet, slightly warm but oh so ripe Strawberry. And there’s only one way to enjoy […]

White Rot!

Ack! I’ve got White Rot on my Garlic. I noticed that some of them had started to split and the leaves were turning more and more yellow. I pulled one up to investigate and that’s when I discovered this nasty little fungal disease, lurking beneath the surface. It’s not good news. White Rot is serious […]

Spring Carrots

I harvested my first Spring Carrots today. I sowed them quite early in the year in my Victorian cloche. I filled up the cloche with compost and sowed the seed under glass. They germinated quite quickly and have been happily growing undisturbed ever since. I have sowed some Carrots in the open ground since then […]

Allotment vs Garden?

A couple of evenings ago we went on a hot air balloon ride across Bath. I’m not usually great with heights and so I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I was the person holding on very tight before launch and not saying very much. But once we were in the air, I was fascinated. […]

Green Garden

Everything (well almost, everything) is green in my garden at the moment. At this time of year all of the fruit is unripe and most of the things that are ready for harvest are either green (Lettuce, Spinach, Kale etc) or the colour is under the ground (Carrots, Radish etc). With the exception of my […]