My south-facing kitchen window is packed with seedlings, and I’m bracing for the cold snap that’s arriving tonight. It should last the week, which means there will be very little garden progress for the next few days. I’ve saved up a couple of episodes of Gardner’s World to tide me over. I’ve been growing vegetables…
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I’ve taken the decision to grow all of my berries in pots. Originally, I was going to use a bed, but the soil requirements are so varied that I think each bush will be happier in its own home. So I’ll be moving two honey berry plants and potting up a couple of blueberries. I…
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Only a few weeks to go until my gardening dreams collide with reality. At the moment, every vegetable I want to grow will go exactly to plan and look as good as (if not better than) the photo on the seed packet. There will be no weeds, no aphids, no blight, no leggy seedlings –…
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While goofing about on TikTok last night, I was shown a clip about perennial kale. I’ve grown kale as an annual, but had no idea there was a perennial variety that produces leaves throughout the year – multiple years, in fact. We eat a lot of kale, so I immediately began searching for seeds so…
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Good riddance to 2022. It was hard on just about everyone, and it was cruel to us until the very end with the death of a much-loved pet and more than one horrible diagnosis for a family member. But it’s nearly over and I won’t dwell. Instead I’ll look back on the things I accomplished.…
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When a person reaches their mid-to-late 40s, a strange process begins. Dinner time gets earlier, greenhouses get purchased, pinafores become attractive, and then later, the switch completely flips and one is wearing sensible shoes while coveting everything in the Lakeland catalog. My parents did some boring-ass stuff in their 50s, and I can remember thinking…
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This beautiful plant came bursting out of our garden wall a couple of years ago. It’s quintupled in size since I first noticed it, and it’s looking quite pretty this year. It’s fragile, though, and I’ve been unable to get at the roots to transplant it. Each attempt has led to my tearing it out…
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Fig and Pen 