Achocha: an easy alternative to growing sweet green peppers
I tried growing peppers yet again this year in the greenhouse. Some were attacked by a mystery pest that ate into the fruit just at stem level. The fruit gradually rotted. But one plant was not attacked and we ended the season with sweet peppers – just four but these are the first peppers that I’ve ever managed to grow. I also planted achocha this year. I hadn’t heard of these until I spotted them on The Real Seed website. Who could resist the name “Fat Baby” and the photo of just a hand poking out from the undergrowth of achocha....
read moreGrow Red Brandy Wine tomatoes for flavour and great returns
We’ve grown a wonderful new (to us) tomato this year. Taking Tamar’s advice – she writes the sparky Starving off the Land blog – I invested in an American variety of tomato seed called Red Brandy Wine. This variety has some resistance to blight. I spotted biodynamic seed in the Lunar Organics online catalogue . Following biodynamic principles, I sowed the seed on a fruit day. Then pricked out and planted on the relevant day. Incidentally I found the Lunar Organics biodynamic calendar much easier to use than Maria Thum’s...
read moreHow to grow the best potatoes
Up until this year we’ve always been a bit disappointed with our home grown spuds – flavour is always good but the harvests have been poor. We thought that we were giving them the correct TLC but clearly we were going very wrong somewhere. Having been laid up for the past year I had time to research in depth the ways to give potatoes the best possible chance. And I’m delighted to report that I’ve grown fabulous spuds this year. Each plant giving on average 2-3 kilos. We have 40 plants in the kitchen garden borders (not counting the...
read moreCabbage whitefly: can it be controlled with nettle tea?
I’ve just discovered that cabbage white fly is attacking our Sunderland kale. This is my first year growing this variety and it had been romping along – growing quite tall and bushy. Last week I noticed that the strong green leaves were yellowing and by yesterday they were looking very grim. When I touched them yesterday clouds of tiny white mothlike creatures flew into the air. Apparently these creatures are cabbage whitefly. They only attack members of the brassica family. I noticed a few on the Tuscan Kale last autumn but had...
read moreBeetroot crisps recipe: a way to cope with and enjoy a beetroot glut
Vegetable crisps are surprisingly delicious. I was first introduced to them at a party in the 90’s, when a bowl of these were passed round and scoffed. They must have been Tyrrell’s as this was the first company to manufacture them in the UK. Last year I dehydrated beetroot slices for the winter and discovered that I had made tasty, healthy crisps. They didn’t last very long once we’d tasted them – we guzzled the winter stores within a week. This year I’m going to increase our vegetable crisp repertoire and try...
read moreBiodynamic gardening update: July 2010
“It’s nearly the end of July. Surely there’s something we can eat from the garden?” Danny was exasperated – forgetting that we have already munched loads from the garden in the past few months. Spuds, orach (German Mountain spinach), calabrese, turnips, broad beans, raspberries, strawberries, tayberries, loganberries, peas, lettuces and salad leaves. But then I twigged that he’s desperate to start harvesting his favourite. Runner beans. They are a bit late this year but a careful examination of the beans revealed that they...
read moreOne Pot Pledge®
Have you heard of the One Pot Pledge®? This is a great campaign started by Garden Organic – the largest organic growing charity in the UK. The idea is to encourage 30,000 people who have not grown some of their own food before to make a pledge to grow something edible in a pot. This is a superb initiative as everyone has a place somewhere for a pot. Even if it’s on your desk at work. This campaign started much earlier this year but there are still lots of things that you can grow and enjoy. Salad leaves, peas or even nurture a tomato...
read moreGarden Peas: fresh and frozen
Three years ago we discovered that frozen “Garden Peas” are much tastier than frozen “Petit Pois”. They are cheaper too. The shops are now full of fresh peas in the pods. They look so tempting but I’ve always found them tough and disappointing. I reckon that they need to be really fresh or frozen fresh to shine in the taste stakes. This year I have grown two types of peas – both biodynamic from the Demeter range at Lunar Organics. A sugar snap pea (Sugar Dwarf Sweet Green) and a more traditional pea (Hurst Green Shaft). A week...
read more
FD