Growing
Our growing is mainly focussed around edible crops – vegetables, fruit and herbs. We also grow flowers in herbaceous borders, raised beds, pots and hanging baskets at both the allotment and at home.
My favourite ‘Grow Your Own’ Bloggers
At the end of last year, we were lucky to be awarded a prize as Kitchen Garden’s best blog/website for 2019. I was very humbled and surprised with this especially since there are so many other great bloggers out there. In this post I would like to share some great ‘Grow your Own’ blogs that I enjoy following. Take a look!
When to start sowing?
Photo by Akil Mazumder At this time of year there is always lots of talk on social media about ‘when to start sowing”. If this is your first year growing veg it can be VERY confusing. There is guidance on the back of seed packets, but even this can be a very wide range of times! Kitchen gardeners are a very passionate bunch and we just want to get going. However starting very early usually isn’t the best approach!
Here I discuss our planning schedule for the year to give you an example of a working plan to manage a vegetable garden.Making liquid plant feed from weeds
I have been contemplating making a system for producing liquid plant feed from comfrey for quite some time (well instructing Ant to do so). As part of our generous prize for winning the Kitchen Garden Blog/Website of the Year 2019 competition we have been lucky enough to have recieved some goodies in the post. One of these items was a Hozelock Pure BioMix bucket. Whoop!
Today we decided to get it out of the box and give this a try
Plastic and Kitchen Gardening
The Plastic Problem
Although the first plastic was produced in 1907 it wasn’t until the 1950’s that plastic production became industrialised. In 2015 it was estimated that it was estimated there were 381 million tonnes of plastic produced globally. In 2018, plastic pollution became a hot topic – the so called ‘David Attenborough effect’
How does plastic pollution fit with the ethos of Kitchen Gardening? What is the impact of plastic in the garden? Are there alternatives? As kitchen gardener’s what can we do to help?
Happy New Year: Reflections for 2019
Things never stand still in gardening. Every year, we plan to change structures, build new things and try new plants. The creativity of gardening is one of the things I really love. 2019 was no different! Developments have included, fitting an IBC tank for water storage, building polyhouse cloches over beds to grow heat-loving plants, installing another pond, building a brick bbq, a rockery and the latest challenge of completely taking apart the summerhouse to recycle and rebuild a larger structure. That last project is still underway!
1000L IBC tank 
Summerhouse build in progress 
Tadpoles in the new pond
Getting started on a new allotment plot
So you have got your allotment or are thinking of growing vegetables in your garden, where do you start?
Controlling weeds: Creeping Buttercup
Image from lawnweeds.co.uk Creeping buttercup, Ranunculus repens, is also known as Crow’s foot and Restharrow. It is a herbaceous plant that can grow up to 50cm tall. Just under the surface the plant sends out runners, called stolons, which means it can quickly infest an area.
How can you control creeping buttercup in your vegetable beds, borders or lawn?
Video diary: Clearing a plot with ‘No Dig’
We have decided to take the plunge and use ‘No Dig’ methods to clear Plot 5b. Here is a short intro to Plot 5b and our plans to tackle the space. We will be producing a series of videos about our progress.
One of the problem weeds on 5b is ‘Creeping buttercup’Planting plan for 2020
I do love a bit of organising. One of my November jobs has always been to plan out my planting schemes for the next year. This gives me time to consider which seeds I need to order. I was super-organised with this and had completed my plan in September. However, having recently acquired plot 5b I have had to reconsider my layout so I had a look at the plans this morning.
I use excel to produce my plan – nice and simple and I have plans going back to 2008. This helps me to carefully plan rotation and is a good aid to memory. As my structure is saved within the excel file I can just amend any change to layout and then type where I will plant a crop in each box.
I draw this out on a blackboard on the back of my shed door to aid with planting, but keep a hard copy on my computer for future planning. I admit I don’t always rigidly stick to the plan and I don’t plan any second cropping; just putting this in as plants come out.Click here for a large scale picture to show detail (Note this is a .pdf file)
‘No Dig’ Gardening
What is ‘No Dig’?
‘No dig’ gardening is just what it says on the tin—don’t dig! Composted mulches are laid on the top of the ground, for example compost or well-rotted manure. Traditional methods would recommend that these are ‘dug in’ by turning over the soil during spring to incorporate the organic matter into the structure of the soil.