How you can be in good company with a more free spirited approach to planting on your plot… Most gardening books will tell you about the importance of crop rotation ‘blah, blah, brassicas after legumes”… “waffle, waffle, potatoes first…” It’s a planting system that is undoubtedly sensible if a) you’re a market gardener and will be …
WE DON’T NEED NO CROP ROTATION – a look at a companion planting alternative Read More »
I had an interest in the great outdoors from a very young age. I can remember as a child being mesmerised, watching as hundreds of baby spiders emerged and spread themselves bravely across a web. I wanted to grow veg but my parents didn’t know how, so I threw carrot seeds in the ground recklessly, …
If you want to feel better in this increasingly worrying world in which we reside then go and stick your hands in some good honest soil. Forget about gloves, and everything else you have going on in your life, and get stuck in. Pick some up, run it through your fingers and get connected because …
Having closed the door firmly on an absolute scoundrel of a year (2016, you know I’m referring to you), it’s time to stick my hands in some good honest compost and get ready to delight once again in the restorative magic of watching as new shoots emerge bravely from the darkness and into the light. …
Let’s face it – January isn’t a popular month. In fact it’s widely considered to be the most depressing month of the year. We’ve also just had so-called ‘Blue Monday’ as it’s referred to throughout the media, although arguably this year that could have been changed to ‘Black Friday’ , certainly for all liberal-minded folk …
It was the posh shabby-chic Christmas catalogue that came through the post a few years back that provided an incentive for me to start making my own festive decorations from items gathered from the garden. I balked at what they were charging for what (appeared to me) to be simply bits of tree with silver …
A lot of people still follow so-called traditional advice of ‘bedding the garden’ down for winter. This normally entails meticulously pulling out dead or spent crops and digging the ground over to expose it to the elements which is recommended as being ‘good ‘for the soil. It’s actually a terrible, I repeat terrible thing to …
There are many fantastic (and free) materials that can be used to great effect around the smallholding and woodchip has to be one of the best. It’s also one of the easiest to get hold of as most tree surgeons or tree maintenance companies will jump at the opportunity of somewhere to dump their leftovers. …
WOODCHIP – making friends with your local tree surgeon Read More »
Kim Stoddart gets up close and personal with all pollinators great and small… Have you ever stopped and listened to the musical sound a bee makes as it works a flower head? Or looked at a wasp as it chews tiny bits of wood off your fence or garden furniture? Wasps may have a somewhat …
Celebrating all pollinators – why they truly are the bees’ knees Read More »
There are whole books on the subject of taking cuttings. Whole books about something that is in reality an incredibly easy thing to do. Equally baffling is the fact that most advice is also ridiculously overly-complicated and exacting. No wonder then that many people choose to buy in any extra plants needed, rather than giving …
TAKING CUTTINGS – Why we should all snip, snip away Read More »
