It’s no good: I can’t resist. This happens every year in February. There’s something about the turn of the month that makes your gardening brain go into “spring” mode. Whatever the weather outside – and let’s face it, we’ve had some pretty horrific weather this year – I just want to get growing. If I were [...]
Archive for February, 2010
Tales of an impatient gardener
Posted in Greenhouse growing, Propagation, sowing, tagged baby leaf salads, carrots, parsnips, salads, seed, sowing, spring, time management, tomatoes, winter on February 28, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Forcing the issue #2
Posted in Container veg growing, Fruit, Greenhouse growing, Propagation, tagged containers, forcing, frost, Fruit, strawberries, weather, winter on February 24, 2010 | 2 Comments »
What a stop-start spring this has been. A week of watery sunshine got me all Tigger-like and bouncy in anticipation that finally, at last, the winter was over. Weeds were weeded, beds were forked over, edges were trimmed. Now it’s minus-goodness-knows-what at night again, blistering cold wind and sleeting rain all day. The allotment is under water, [...]
Safeguarding the future
Posted in Other stuff, Unusual veg, tagged beans, heritage varieties, kale, peas, seed, sowing on February 20, 2010 | 3 Comments »
I’ve fulfilled a long-held ambition this year and put my name down for the Heritage Seed Library. This remarkable band of mainly volunteers have taken it upon themselves, very nearly single-handedly, to save all the vegetable varieties they can. The majority of the veg we grow are registered under the 1973 Seed (National List of Varieties) [...]
Pick of the month: February
Posted in Pick of the month, tagged parsnips, sowing on February 16, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Parsnip “White Gem” All right, all right. You can stop laughing now. Newly washed and presented to my family for inspection, my 9-year-old’s reaction to this was, “Ooooh, Mummy, you’ve grown an Ood!”(1) I have terrible soil for growing parsnips. Despite ladling on barrowloads of compost and well-rotted stable manure, despite lovingly constructing raised beds [...]
Of sun and wind
Posted in Unusual veg, sowing, tagged edible passion fruit, Jerusalem artichokes, slugs on February 12, 2010 | 3 Comments »
This is the other coveted prize I carried home from the wonderful Potato Day I went to in Hampshire the other week. It may not look very promising: it’s just a knobbly sort of lumpy thing a couple of inches across. But within that unglamorous exterior is the promise of wonderful things to come. It is, of course, a Jerusalem [...]
The eyes have it
Posted in Allotments, Greenhouse growing, Storing, sowing, tagged chitting, potatoes, sowing on February 7, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Get a room full of keen veg-growers together at this time of year, and sooner or later you can guarantee the talk will turn to whether or not you chit your potatoes. It’s one of those pieces of wisdom that’s handed down unquestioned from gardener to gardener through the ages: when your seed potatoes arrive, you stand them [...]
Spud-ilicious!
Posted in Shows, Unusual veg, tagged peas, heritage varieties, beans, onions, potatoes, yacon, jerusalem artichoke on February 2, 2010 | 4 Comments »
I don’t know if you’ve ever paused to wonder how many potato varieties there are. Take a guess. Maybe 30? Or 50 if you count all those wierd knobbly heritage varieties? Well I counted 128 on offer at the 12th annual Hampshire Potato Day, held in Whitchurch, near Andover, at the weekend. There were French gourmet [...]
Crocus kitchen garden shop
-
Harvesting Now
Blackcurrants, calabrese, cauliflower, courgettes, French beans, garlic, globe artichokes, gooseberries, kale, onions, peas, potatoes (new and second early), raspberries (summer), redcurrants, runner beans, salad leaves, shallots, strawberries, tomatoes, whitecurrantsSowing Now
Archives
Subjects
