Pruning Redcurrants

I hate pruning. I get really nervous when I’m about to cut something off and get obsessed with reading how to prune the same bush in as many different books as possible before I make my first cut. As I mentioned in an earlier post I had no Redcurrants this year. Unlike last year when […]

Random Harvest

The plot is being a bit random right now. You know what I mean – a bit of this ready, a bit of that ready. I brought in this little harvest a few days ago. Not much of anything really. A few Courgettes are ready (and you have to pick them before they grow too […]

Garden Posy

I’m the person who buys a bunch of flowers from the supermarket, unwraps them, chops the ends off and dumps them in the vase, ready-arranged. I’m certainly no florist. But there’s something about Sweet Peas and their mouth-watering scent that makes me want to throw caution to the wind, pull out my kitchen scissors and cut a […]

Beautiful Courgette Flower

Courgettes (or Zucchini as some will have it) get a bad press. They are stupidly easy to grow, produce large, sometimes overpowering, plants and pump out produce until we are so sick of eating them that we need help coming up with new ways to eat them. Of course then there is the curse of the marrow. […]

Garden in Full Swing

A few of you have been asking for an updated photo of the garden – well here it is. We’re in full swing here at mtp. The Peas have come and gone, we’re one row of potatoes down and currently munching through our 50th lettuce (or thereabouts). Everything is going really well with the new […]

Summer Berry Hotchpotch

This week we’ve been holidaying at a place called Bell Vue Farm which is part of the Featherdown Farms network. I call it ‘posh camping’ because while you do stay in a field under canvas in the usual way you also have your own running water, flushing toilet and wood-burning stove in the tent too […]

10 Jobs for July

Summer is in full swing and most plants are in the ground now. You should be harvesting salad crops, peas and potatoes by now with some strawberries and other soft fruit for pudding. Gather the last of the peas and clear the ground Sow late Carrots Turn your attention to Autumn crops and sow things […]

What I’ve learned about Peas

As you can see, the Peas are in full swing. I have learned some useful things about peas this year that I want to share with you. Firstly, I grew two varieties, Kelvedon Wonder (my usual) and Rondo (a new variety for me). Early on in the year I sowed both seed separately in lengths […]