 Friday, October 17, 2008 by Jeremy Dore (7 comments)
It is around this time of the year that I like to start one of my favourite gardening activities –dreaming about next year! As the garden starts to slow down for the approaching winter, catalogues appear through the letterbox at an ever increasing rate and looking through them helps distract my attention from dismal weather and lack of daylight. I particularly like pictures promising huge harvests of fruit from perfectly pruned bushes. The only problem is the cost of buying in the new bushes and trees. But there is one type of fruit that comes to the rescue... currant bushes. Read more...
Categories: gardening fruit currant shade propagating cuttings |
Friday, October 10, 2008 by Jeremy Dore (5 comments)
Bees aren't usually something that we gardeners give a lot of thought to. They're a welcome sign of Spring and generally go about their business of enjoying the flowers while we plant the crops that they then pollinate for us. It is all so natural that we may be inclined to take it for granted but soon it may not be that simple. According to warnings from beekeepers, scientists and some government bodies honey bees are on the decline. Read more...
Categories: Growing pollination bees |
Friday, October 03, 2008 by Jeremy Dore (13 comments)
‘Dig for Victory’ was the memorable slogan of the British government’s campaign during the last World War to encourage the nation to feed itself in a time of food shortages. Since then there have been many changes to the way the Western World feeds itself and few can deny the quantity and range of foods now available compared to those days of rationing. So it is somewhat surprising to hear many of those who influence food policy recommending a return to national self-sufficiency in food. What is behind the call for people to return to growing their own produce? Read more...
Categories: food gardening price |
Friday, September 26, 2008 by Jeremy Dore (2 comments)
For most people, vegetable gardening is done largely for the enjoyment of producing great-tasting food for their tables. If there’s an excess of one fruit or vegetable then it is either preserved, given away to friends or neighbours (more courgettes...how kind!) or perhaps swapped for someone else’s excess. But what about growing extra crops to sell at a profit? Is it a great idea or can it be more trouble than it’s worth? Read more...
Categories: gardening selling |
Friday, September 19, 2008 by Jeremy Dore (42 comments)
Over the past two months we have been conducting a survey of the best tomato varieties that gardeners using GrowVeg.com would recommend to others. It can be tricky choosing which tomatoes to grow since most seed catalogues contain a wider variety of them than any other fruit or vegetable. It would be quite possible to spend a lifetime working through each kind to find the best and still not have tried them all. So what do real gardeners like you and I recommend as the top varieties? Read on to find out... Read more...
Categories: vegetable tomato variety |
Friday, September 12, 2008 by Jeremy Dore (4 comments)
Here at GrowVeg.com we have recently had several enquiries from people just taking on a new vegetable garden or allotment. For many of them the big question on their mind is ‘What can I sow now to still get a harvest?’ As days get shorter towards the end of the growing season many plants respond by maturing the crop and then dying down. There are only a few that will actively start growing as the nights get colder so I thought I would round up a list of the best contenders. Read more...
Categories: gardening fall autumn salad |
Friday, September 05, 2008 by Jeremy Dore (4 comments)
There are certain accepted facts in life: prices go up, people are living longer and organic food is more expensive than non-organic. Right? Well, incredible as it may sound, the Soil Association has this week published a study that challenges the last of these assumptions. According to research done by farm business consultants Andersons, the price of oil is going to dramatically change the profitability of farming systems. Read more...
Categories: organic food |
Friday, August 29, 2008 by Jeremy Dore (29 comments)
How to improve the fertility of your soil is a question that all good gardeners take seriously. One of the most under-used methods of soil improvement is the use of green manures (called ‘fall cover crops’ in America), plants grown specifically to be dug back into the soil to improve it. In principle this sounds pretty easy – just sprinkle some seed on the ground after the main crop has been harvested and then dig the plants in after a few weeks. But in practice there’s a lot more to it, so I thought I would do a little experimenting to find the perfect green manure. Read more...
Categories: gardening organic green manure soil |
Friday, August 22, 2008 by Jeremy Dore (4 comments)
I love this time of year when the harvest is rolling in, when you can wander round the garden and pick enough to make up a meal from the ingredients you have in your hand. But it also gets me reflecting on the choices I made when planning this year’s garden. Could I have squeezed in more peas? What made the peppers do so well? Did I make the right choices about what to grow in the space I have? Read more...
Categories: gardening vegetables harvest planning |
Friday, August 15, 2008 by Jeremy Dore (6 comments)
This week has been designated ‘National Allotments Week’ here in the UK and it’s also the 100th year since the 1908 ‘Small Holdings and Allotment Act’ was passed in parliament, requiring local government to provide allotments for people where there was demand. (For those readers who live elsewhere in the world, allotments are areas of land owned by the local government or parish in the UK and rented out cheaply as small plots for growing fruit and vegetables.) In recent years there has been a huge resurgence of interest in allotments and we’ve seen lots of people planning them using GrowVeg.com. The motivation for people taking up an allotment may be different from the beginning of the last century but I believe that the upsurge in interest is here to stay as more and more people want to grow their own food again. Read more...
Categories: gardening allotments |