You Can Pick That, Just Not That

I’ll come straight to the point. How do you ask your neighbour to ‘pick some veg’ while you’re on holiday, but politely say ‘leave some for me!’? Our kind neighbour is poised to water our garden while we’re away and I have suggested that he might like to pick some of the Runner Beans, Courgettes, […]

Crystal Apple Cucumbers

Just a sneaky look at my Crystal Apple Cucumbers. They are one of this year’s successes and are so unlike any cucumber that I’ve ever seen that I can’t stop taking photos of them. They’re an old Victorian variety and pretty much impossible to find in the shops – which makes growing them all the […]

Tomatoes At Last!

Success! My Tomatoes are ripe. And I managed to pick these before holiday too. Brilliant. The rest of the year can be rubbish now – I have my Tomatoes. I’m happy.

Tomatoes Ripening, Yey!

My Tomatoes are beginning to ripen, yey! I have at least one Tomato nearly ready on all eight plants. That’s a potential Tomato meal before we go on holiday. Well, that’s better than last year. All my Tomatoes were pretty much green and hard at the end of Aug 2008. This year, we’re heading towards […]

Time to Get the Onions In

I’ve been away camping this weekend so haven’t had chance to harvest my Onions. They’ve been ready for pulling for about a week now but I haven’t been able to harvest them because it was either raining or I didn’t have time. It’s a delicate process. The weather needs to be dry and you need […]

Why Do You Grow?

I’ve been pondering why I’m so interested in gardening. Why are some people driven to grow and others not. I’m fascinated by people who don’t grow because my family were always growing something, either a greenhouse-full of Tomatoes, or a row of Potatoes, or even a hanging basket full of Busy Lizzies copied from one […]

How to Tell If a Peach is Ripe

Well, the short answer is, ‘when it looks like this’. But, okay I’ll give you the long answer then. I had no idea how to tell if a Peach is ripe until a few days ago when I thought – hmm that Peach looks ripe but I’m too much of a wuss to pick it […]

Drying Shallots in the Sunshine

We’ve had three days of solid, wall-to-wall sunshine. Which means a few things. Firstly, that my Tomatoes are ripening (more on that later) and secondly that I can start to think about lifting my Shallots and Onions. First to go are the Shallots. I planted my own saved bulbs this year and what a success […]

How to Make Dill Pickles

My Gherkins are going crazy – as usual. So it’s time to get out the pickling jars. I did make Dill Pickles last year, following recipe that I found online. While they tasted great (very Dill-like and everything) they weren’t crunchy. Call me old-fashioned but I like my pickles to have a bit of crunch. […]

Ripening Peaches

This photo was taken last week. And this photo was taken today! My eight peaches are busy ripening. And it hasn’t even been that sunny here. They’re still pretty hard though. Not even close to being ready, yet. I’ve been tidying up the fan as it’s been growing – taking away any shoots that are […]