I have a bit of a collecting habit, for plants that is. I love plants almost to the exclusion of all else and consequently find myself seeking out those rarities and commoners that I want to grow, and then adding their friends and other finds along the way. Why grow one colour when you can…
Continue ReadingTag: grow your own
Allotmenteering
Almost 10 years ago I took on a rather weedy overgrown allotment plot, no.25. It’s down at the bottom of the plot of about 100 allotments. Shaded until around 11am by a huge hawthorn hedge the council never seem to cut back at the top, so on the sides it is thin and gappy. I…
Continue Reading
Plants: Grape Vines
More than a little chuffed and excited with the grapevine this year. It’s 4 th year here and thus far a tiny bunch has appeared each of the previous 2 years. This year it’s COVERED in grapes. I’ve pruned back in Spring per @themontydon instructions, 2 bunches per vertical, 3 leaf intersections. But it still…
Continue Reading
Recipe: Green tomato chutney
You know the old saying ‘when life gives you lemons….make lemonade‘ well when nature hands you a series of Mill’s periods* resulting in a surge of tomato blight you make a plethora of Green tomato chutney. Ingredients: 2.5kg green tomatoes (if a few red/orange ones go in so much the better) 500g onions (2-3 large…
Continue Reading
Recipe – Red Currant Jelly
I always have great plans for preserves and jamming as much of my produce and foraging as possible as the seasons roll around but last year everything well to hell in a hand basket as life stopped for our RHS Tatton Show Garden. In theory it was only July but in practice it was most…
Continue Reading
7 rewarding later summer perennial plants
Later-ish summer perennials that go on flowering and flowering are a bonus for the gardener and for the wildlife feeding and foraging in our green spaces. The light begins to change a we head towards Autumn and the golden hues are embellished by the shift in light quality. Richer, a bit more saturated, a touch…
Continue ReadingTODOS – May
Yet another frantic month, but soon we can sit back with a glass of something cool and admire the results of the last couple of back breaking months. May however is not that month…. Even though a tad on the chilly side this month is a frenzy of annual flower seed planting and planting out…
Continue Reading
TODOS – April
March screeched to an end and then the wind howled around the house for what seemed like an age. Spring seemed in full retreat until late last week, now it’s back in force. Of course the risk here is those of us growing seedlings inside are lulled into a false sense of security and send…
Continue Reading
TODOS March
I hope your February was as busy as mine? pruning Wisteria, completing winter prunes on the Apple and Pear family, including quinces there. Chopping back herbaceous perennials that withstood the winter weather. Asters, hardy Fuschia, ornamental grasses, taking a weeping Caryopteris back to the bone, Ceratostigma to the ground, tidying the Helleborus orientalis leaves, I…
Continue Reading
Dahlia
August, well almost September is the time of Dahlia’s big and blousey through to pom pom and petite. They are making a come back into gardens and editorials but really for some have never been out of favour. The late summer blaze of colour and exuberance is completely captivating and the more you deadhead the more…
Continue Reading