Category: vegetable plot
Blight Free Tomatoes
March 4, 2015
Many gardeners have at some point suffered the disappointment of their entire season’s tomato crop being devastated by blight. With spores being carried on the wind tomato blight can spread for many miles and although some blight resistant tomatoes are already available none have been able to fight off all strains of the disease. Until now. Continue Reading
Vegetables in Small Spaces
April 14, 2011
an area of my garden, laid down to metre-wide beds, mostly two metres in length and packed with produce
Gardening by the “square metre” is a simple, easy-to-follow concept that allows you to squeeze more produce into small spaces. Basically, you sow crops closer together – a higher density in any give area. Vegetables, salads, herbs and other edibles – whether annual or perennial – are planted in beds no more than a metre (39 inches) wide. Beds can be square, but need not be; raised or at ground level. It’s not the length that is important, but the WIDTH. ‘Square-Metre Gardening’ is also a no-dig technique, once it’s set up, unless you neglect the beds! You can tend and reach produce from either side of any metre-wide bed; as plants are grown closer together, weeding is reduced and because you do not ever step on the growing area, soil is not compacted. Fertility is built up by the annual addition of compost. It’s a technique you can use in garden or allotment, and one I have followed for many years.
Planning the Perfect Potager
February 18, 2011
Discussing a secluded area in our Cotswold garden sorely in need of reclamation; almost a total makeover – but I have such plans (though bringing them to fruition will take time, and hours of work).
Rain in the wind, and falling from the sky – and I wonder when I will ever get back to the joys of plunging my hands in the warm soil, and actually sowing and planting anything, let alone harvesting young and succulent salads and vegetables. I return to my series of photographs taken around the garden in early January, and the plans that I was trying to formulate in my head for this year; always more than I can ever accomplish! Last week I blogged about my passion for herbs – but that is as nothing when compared to my PASSION for POTAGERS. Potagers? Best described perhaps as productive yet ornamental kitchen gardens. Not just food, but glorious colour, and the ongoing delights of watching edible plants grow, whilst also accommodating beneficial wildlife, no matter how small the space.
Potatoes – grow, cook, eat
January 14, 2011
first of the new potato crop (taken June 2010)
The ubiquitous potato is a staple of most people’s diet, and has been ever since the sea-faring Sir Francis Drake introduced them to our shores in the 1580s – and he did not think much of them as a food! Yet they are packed with goodness. Although a year-round crop (whether freshly dug or stored), it will however be some months before we will be digging this season’s new potatoes and eating them, plain-boiled or – even more delicious – topped with freshly-chopped parsley and lashings of butter.