Orange Spot on Pear Leaf

While inspecting my three Pears dangling from my Pear trees I found these, nasty-looking, day-glow spots on some of the leaves. Yuk! Apparently it’s Pear rust and is a fungal disease that affects Pears and Junipers. Infact, the spores need a Juniper to over-winter on! I don’t own a Juniper bush! One of my sneaky […]

Harvesting Shallots

I harvested my Shallots a couple of days ago. They had reached the stage where their leaves had flopped over and dried out and the bulbs were looking pretty big. So I took advantage of a sunny day and dug the whole harvest up. I put them in a wooden tray to dry in the […]

Time to Feed Tomatoes

If you haven’t done it yet it’s time to start feeding your Tomatoes in order to give them that lovely deep Tomatoey taste. A high-potash feed is what you need and there are several options you can go for. An off-the-shelf fertilizer like Tomorite, an organic Tomato fertilizer, Comfrey tea or you can even use […]

Tom Thumb Lettuce

One of my favourite Lettuces to grow is Tom Thumb. It’s a butterhead type with nice tight, bright green leaves and it tastes lovely with a good mustardy dressing. One of the reasons I like it so much, apart from the taste, is that it looks so neat in the garden! Some of the Lettuces […]

New (ish) Potatoes

I’ve been harvesting my New Potatoes for a few weeks now – later than last year I’m sure. But they still taste amazing! I didn’t get to grow my saved seed Potatoes that were given to me last year. Why? Because mice ate them! Can you believe it? It makes me laugh that I wrote […]

Elephant Garlic

I had to pull my Elephant Garlic because it was trying to flower. I’ve showed it here next to some Carrots I pulled at the same time so you can see how big it is. They’re about 8 or 9cm across. I must confess myself a bit disappointed with the Elephant Garlic. It’s not as […]

Harvesting Blackcurrants

It’s time to harvest the Blackcurrants. They’re so ripe I can actually smell them as I walk past the bush. I only have one Blackcurrant bush but it’s always dripping in berries so I always have more than enough. I usually use the Sarah Raven method for harvesting Blackcurrants by cutting whole branches out with […]

Leek Flowers

Once, way back when I had my allotment, I let one of my Leeks go to flower. Just to see what happened. The result was amazing. A beautiful, spherical, pom-pom that exploded from its papery case and attracted bees from miles around. So this year when I came back from holiday and found that the […]

Success with Cauliflowers!

I can hardly believe I’m writing this but after years of trying to grow an edible Cauliflower I’ve actually gone and managed it. I’m in shock. I harvested this Cauliflower a few days ago but there are another five or six of them in the ground. Before I went on holiday the plants were quite […]