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Growing Tomatoes from seed – Now is the time!
The best thing about growing your own tomatoes, is choice. There is such a wide variety of tomatoes to choose from when you grow your own. The sizes range from, tiny cherry tomatoes, pointed plum tomatoes, right the way up to large beefsteak varieties. And don’t be thinking that all tomatoes are red. They can be yellow, orange, different shades of red and even purple. Growing a variety of colours, looks great in a salad. How to choose your tomatoes The most important thing, when you are growing for yourself is flavour! This is obviously personal preference. So experiment, growing different varieties, but remember to keep records. You’ll soon build…
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Growing Potatoes
If you fancy growing potatoes, especially earlies. Then January is the month to buy your seed potatoes, and get them chitting. This involves putting them in a light, cool place to start them chitting – which is basically sprouting. The best container for this job is an egg box. It holds the potatoes in an upright position, and won’t sweat. Look at each potato and decide which side has the most ‘eyes’ on it, put this side facing upwards. Put them into your coolest room, where they will get plenty of light, but not direct sunlight. You’ll see the little chits start to develop. They are ready to be planted…
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Making Compost
Before we moved here eight years ago. We hadn’t got space for a large composting area so we bought a worm hotel. They were all the rage at the time, and we actually got on very well with it. It was remarkable how quickly the worms broke down the material. There was also an added benefit of liquid fertiliser that you drained off, it was fabulously potent stuff! We brought the worm hotel with us when we moved, and set it up straight away. We throw almost no food away, but we do like to compost all of our vegetable peelings. It served this purpose well for the first three…
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Super Simple Bean Salad with Mint & Thyme dressing
If you’ve ever grown climbing beans, then you’ll know that once they start producing, there’s no stopping them! So what do you do with all those beans? Well one thing you can make with the young tender beans is this delicious, quick and easy (5-10 minutes) bean salad. You don’t have to grow your own, it works just as well with shop bought beans. Why not give it a go! It makes a tasty accompaniment to a main meal. You can also eat it on its own, especially if you add a few chopped nuts, or some cheese (feta’s good) for extra protein. And some pasta or grains. It also…
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Beans – French, Runner & Borlotti
Growing beans in a pot Beans were the second crop I ever grew, after tomatoes. I only had the tiniest little veg area, so I grew some runner beans in Grans old dolly tub. I really don’t know what she’d have made of that! Now that we’ve moved house and created a kitchen garden, with six raised vegetable beds. I grow tulips in Granny’s old dolly tub, I even managed to find a matching one at the local auction house. Space to grow more beans Now having so much more space, I grow three types of climbing beans, French, Borlotti, and the good old ‘Runner’. I grow two varieties of…
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Tomatoes – My first crop
Tomatoes were the first edible plants I grew, which I’m sure is true of many gardeners. I’ve grown them from seed for more than 20 years now and February wouldn’t feel the same without the excitement of starting the tomatoes. Losing my dad as a teenager meant I lost all of his gardening knowledge, built up over so many generations. I still feel sad for all the gardening chats we would have had, as us gardeners do like to talk about our hobby. By the time I got into my mid-twenties, the gardening bug had got a hold of me. I knew so little and was desperate to learn more.…
