It was a sunny start for the chickens today, like me they do take every opportunity to bask when sunshine is on offer. The chickens don’t have a cockerel, I don’t think we could get away with it. One has to try to be on good terms with one’s neighbours and I doubt that a 5 am start to the day would be conducive to … Continue reading Soon I’ll be busy (6 on Saturday)
Hello! I’m diving back into the ‘Six on Saturday’ format but this one’s a bit different! Instead of showing you six things from my garden (which hasn’t yet shed its dismal February look), I’m going to show you six new gardening products that I thought were pretty cool, as seen at the Garden Press Event in London on 21 February. The Garden Press Event is … Continue reading Six cool things for a greener garden
Yes it really is possible to find fresh and tasty things to eat in early February – direct from the veg plot! This is the first year that I’ve successfully grow crops for winter, so I thought I’d share a few tips and highlights with you. What you do need is a little forward planning, and some kind of protection from the worst of the … Continue reading How to enjoy winter harvests
Today I’m going to give you a quick run through of a few experiments from my first proper year of allotmenteering (if mountaineering can be a verb, then why not ‘allotmenteering’? My spellcheck doesn’t agree, and suggests ‘allmothering’ as an alternative, which is actually not far from the truth!). I’ve been spending more time in the allotment than in the garden lately, maybe thanks to … Continue reading Allotment experiments: six on Saturday: 12 Nov 2022
I don’t think I have ever planted bulbs in autumn and got too hot doing it. But I did this week. It was 23 degrees C in my area of Brussels on 28 October, breaking meteorological records. As I popped tulips, alliums and iris into the ground and pots, I wondered what the future hold for them. Bulbs benefit from cold winters, so what happens … Continue reading Balmy October
It looks like this is going to go down as one of the driest summers in Europe – so far, I say with trepidation. Despite the lack of rain, the allotment harvests have been incredible. I can hardly keep up with processing all this food in the kitchen. It’s hard work, of the old-fashioned sort, but I haven’t had to go out and buy fruit … Continue reading Vegtastic Six on Saturday
A quick post this week as I’ve got lots of revising to do for my next set of RHS exams on 22 June! I didn’t want to get out of the new rhythm though, so here’s six things to ponder this week for Six on Saturday. It’s been a week of showers and sunny spells, quite pleasant really and perfect as far as the garden … Continue reading Berry Six on Saturday: 11 June 22
Dear readers, it’s time to introduce you to the new potager. With all the plans swimming around my head for this little plot at the local allotments, I wonder how it will look this time next year. As you can see, right now it’s a very weedy patch. Sigh… There are the bare bamboo bones of what was a makeshift greenhouse in the westerly corner. … Continue reading Potager plans
It’s difficult to ignore the awful fact that there’s now a war in Europe. So my first photo for this week’s Six on Saturday is of a sunflower, which is the national flower of Ukraine and which I post here as a small gesture of solidarity with the Ukrainian people. I discovered that sunflowers are widely grown in Ukraine, which has rich soil that they … Continue reading The sunflower: Six on Saturday: 26 Feb 2022
“Sometimes the only super power you need is persistence”, observes the alien visiting our planet and trying to make sense of our frail, violent, mortal species of middling intelligence in Matt Haig’s excellent book, The Humans. The alien makes a lot of astute observations about us, and am thrilled to prove this particular one true: after more than two years of waiting, chasing, hunting down … Continue reading Persistence and the new allotment
