Herbs can lift a simple dish into something really special, but they’re ridiculously expensive to buy regularly in small packets from the supermarket. Growing your own herbs saves money and makes you feel like a bit of a gourmet. You can buy whole collections of different herbs for as little as £1, and even if [...]
It’s been quiet on the grow-your-own front here this year, hasn’t it? That’s because in March we had finally saved up enough to get the back yard cleared and done up like a proper garden. Here’s a picture taken this afternoon. It’s a gigantic improvement, and I can’t wait to get it all planted up [...]
If you have a small kitchen garden, or you’re growing edible plants on windowsills or in window boxes, you only need a few seeds to fill the whole space with plants. Unfortunately, you usually have to buy the seeds in large quantities, and they don’t always stay fresh and viable for that long after you’ve [...]
Last year I grew a few tomato plants and they were tasty so this year I grew a few more. I went for more varieties this time round, but they nearly all ended up with the same thing in common – the tomatoes wouldn’t ripen (apart from the Yellow Pear toms which I’ll certainly be [...]
It has been an interesting couple of weeks in the kitchen garden, mainly because we’ve had a bit of a heatwave which has had a positive effect on some of the plants. For starters I was convinced there would be no aubergines, then this happened: The big butternut squash ripened, but it somehow got bruised [...]
There isn’t much to do in the garden at the moment, apart from tidying up a little, keeping an eye on the sprouting broccoli and spring cabbages, and giving the soil in the raised beds a good dig to finish breaking up the soil after the winter frosts. Lots of overwintering herbs, salads and greens [...]
I mentioned on Wednesday this week that I was going to write a few articles here and there about garden pests and diseases, and how to deal with or get rid of them cheaply and hopefully also organically where possible. There was a little competition to see whether anyone could work out what had caused [...]
And now, more fabulous foodstuffs on a shoestring. The kitchen garden is amazingly still giving us a few plum tomatoes and a lot of green beans, although most years these would have been finished weeks ago. The cherry tomatoes are finished, so I’ve cut them all down and composted them. This year I’m trying out [...]
Golightly Gardens has been producing lots of food over the last six weeks, and hopefully most of the current crops will be going strong until October. We still have lots of cherry and plum tomatoes on the go (luckily no blight round here this year), along with cucumbers, courgettes, French and runner beans, chicory, spring [...]
Plenty of green growy things to keep you up to date with this no-space grow-your-own experiment. Throwing a few seeds around, hoping for the best, trying to remember things I’ve forgotten and learning something new almost every day. There’s still a lot growing on the windowsills, including cherry (Garden Pearl) and plum tomatoes, sweet Genovese [...]
OK, I missed out October. Bad Penny. But I’m back in Blighty now and cooking up a storm with some seasonal food. It’s fresh, it’s tasty, and there’s a lot of it. Most of the veggies you can grow yourself if you have some outside space and green fingers, you might be able to forage [...]
