 Friday, December 14, 2007 by Jeremy Dore (7 comments)
The topic of food miles – the distance produce has travelled before reaching the supermarket shelf – has been causing a stir here in the UK. The increasing numbers of fresh vegetables and fruit which are transported as air-freight have started to become headline news. Even the big supermarkets are responding to pressure and starting to label produce according to how it reached us. So what are the solutions...? Read more...
Categories: environment organic gardening |
Friday, December 07, 2007 by Jeremy Dore (0 comments)
Serendipity – a wonderful discovery that you weren’t expecting to find – is one of those things that lifts life out of the ordinary, the sparks that keep things interesting. You might think it has very little to do with gardens where we work against the randomness of nature to get a predictable result but I would have to disagree. Renee Shepherd of Renee's Garden Seeds is quoted as saying 'Self-sown flowers provide a lot of serendipity, which is one of the reasons people garden. When they come up, it's a delight.' Read more...
Categories: gardening vegetables |
Friday, November 30, 2007 by Jeremy Dore (5 comments)
Amazing as it may seem, about half of all front gardens in the North East of England are now paved over. No-maintenance, easy parking, or just the latest trend in garden design – these are some of the reasons that more and more people give for turning their natural green spaces into paved or concrete utilities. The problem is becoming so bad that, as the Daily Telegraph reports), there is now a noticeable, and worrying, decline in garden wildlife as a result. But there are much better alternatives... Read more...
Categories: environment |
Thursday, November 22, 2007 by Jeremy Dore (0 comments)
One of my favourite families of vegetable is the multitude of squashes. Not only do squashes look impressive, they are easy to grow, store well and are a great ingredient for home made soup. Yes, I was raised on home-made soups and freshly baked bread and it’s a love affair that never leaves you. When November days are turning dark and damp something deep inside me wants to make thick winter soups. Even now I’ll often opt for the ‘soup of the day’ in a café and it’s great to see so many places reviving the good old tradition of thick freshly made soup with a hunk of bread. So why the connection with squashes? Read more...
Categories: vegetables cooking vegetarian vegan |
Thursday, November 15, 2007 by Jeremy Dore (0 comments)
A few months ago I received a begging letter from a charity. It was one of those pull-at-the-heartstrings letters that could have come from any charity – African development, house homeless dogs... but this one was asking me to support the promotion of organic growing. Running through it was a regular refrain... “Will you send £20 today? Your gift could help us...” and I have to say that while I’m all for charitable giving such letters turn me cold. One statement though really stood out for me: 'As you and I know, the gardener grows for one thing above all else – taste.' Is that the main reason I grow my own...? Read more...
Categories: organic cooking vegetarian |
Tuesday, November 06, 2007 by Jeremy Dore (1 comments)
I’ve recently been enjoying several of the posts at GardenRant.com. It’s a great blog by four gardeners who are also gifted writers, bringing humour and honesty to the subjects they tackle. You can tell they’re passionate about bringing gardening to the masses by their 'Manifesto' which includes ‘We are… bored with perfect magazine gardens … in love with real, rambling, chaotic, dirty, bug-ridden gardens ... appalled by chemical warfare in the garden ... having a hell of a lot of fun’. There’s nothing like some strongly held views to make you keenly aware of what motivates you and so I thought I’d have a go at articulating my own. Read more...
Categories: organic vegetables fruit gardening |
Friday, November 02, 2007 by Jeremy Dore (0 comments)
Digging, mud and manure are not things that I have ever relished about gardening. Some people find it very therapeutic to get dirt under their fingernails and turn over every square inch of their soil at least once a year. Not me. I started life as a bit of an indoor child and moved on to computer programming, so it’s been quite a surprise to find myself enjoying growing food outdoors. But there’s one thing that does motivate me to get my hands dirty: compost... Read more...
Categories: organic compost gardening |
Monday, October 29, 2007 by Jeremy Dore (0 comments)
Home-grown fruit and vegetables have the potential to be the healthiest and best organic food available to you. But what you produce in your garden may not be as pure as you intended. Bob Flowerdew, well-known author of many organic gardening books, has presented a fascinating breakdown of the various ways pollutants can creep into your garden in the November 2007 issue of Kitchen Garden magazine... Read more...
Categories: organic gardening |
Monday, October 22, 2007 by Jeremy Dore (0 comments)
The national press here in the UK has run numerous articles on how there’s a new ground-swell of interest in growing fruit and vegetables (a great example is this Daily Telegraph article) For the first time in twenty years or more there are long waiting lists for plots on hitherto neglected allotment sites. Articles on organic gardening are now main features in Sunday paper supplements and schools are being encouraged to establish garden areas maintained by pupils. Find out why it's such a growth area and what the benefits are... Read more...
Categories: organic gardening vegetables |