Celery and Celeriac

 Celery and celeriac are the same plant (Apium graveolons) with the former (var. graveolons) grown for its stalks and leaves and the latter (var. rapaceum) for its root. We regularly eat celery raw in salads and cooked in dishes such as curry, lasagne, soups, etc but have never tried growing them....

PV Generation - 15 years

The PV panels installed on my roof have now been running for 15 years; switched on 9th December 2005. Apart from an inverter failure in 2015, that took 6 months to fix, the system has been maintenance-free. Annual PV generation (kWh) is shown graphically below.I would expect an reduction in annual electricity...

Garden Shredders

Bob Flowerdew is dismissive of garden shredders ("shredders make materials more suited for composting but are dangerous, noisy and irksome to use"); an opinion he has oft repeated on Gardeners' Question Time (GQT) with comments like as "I cannot see the point of them".As with everything in life, things...

Vinyl Lockdown

 As the UK's second COVID-19 lockdown started on 5th November 2020, I thought I would take the opportunity of listening to my collection of LPs, mainly from the 1970s, in its entirety. By listening I do mean sitting down in a comfortable seat in front of the speakers and enjoying the music without any distractions. Today, everyone seems to listen to music either on the move or as incidental background...

Asparagus Ferns in Autumn

We have a small plot, about 1 square meter, that was planted up with 5 asparagus crowns (Eclipse) some 3 to 4 years ago. This year was their first productive crop and we enjoyed fresh asparagus from mid-April to the end of May.  I'm guessing a yield  of about 2 kg over the 6-week harvesting...

Is it worth sieving your compost?

 It depends! For years I have use my compost 'au naturel', i.e. lumpy with plenty of woody bits in. Used directly on the soil as a mulch or hole/trench filler before planting out fruit and vegetables, it will enrich your soil, improve its structure and help retain moisture during those inevitable...

Loofahs - Update

 In a previous post, I described our first attempt at growing loofah plants. At the time (July 2nd), one of the two plants was growing with good vigour while the other had a lot of catching up to do. Since then I have discovered the vigorous plant is producing only male flowers and it is the weedier...

Home Composting - Prelude

I plan to do a series on home composting covering both theory and practice. The course is designed for small/town gardens, where space is at a premium, but is easily scaled up.There are many reasons for producing and using your own compost: (i) adding soil nutrients, (ii) improving soil structure and...

Potato Harvest (Part 1)

Growing Potatoes in Raised Beds and Potato Bags After hearing good recommendations for the Sarpo potato variety, I managed to get hold of some seed potatoes for this season (2019/20) from Marshalls. The previous year (2018/19), I was far too late ordering in the autumn and every supplier had run...

Growing Loofahs and Sunburnt Raspberries

Growing Loofah (Luffa) Plants In everyday parlance, loofahs are the dried fruits of a tropical/subtropical luffa vine, a member of the cucumber family. When harvested young, it is a popular vegetable especially in India, China and Vietnam. If the fruit is allowed to fully ripen on the vine, it...

Water Meters - Good or Bad?

Water Meter - The Case For Welsh Water (Dŵr Cymru) supply our potable water and take away our sewerage and waste water. For 2020/21, the cost would be £1,143.92 based on the rateable value (RV) of the property. With only two of us living here now, the option to install a water meter, and just pay...

Making Vegetable Soups in a Vitamix Blender

Vegetable Soup in a Vitamix 5000 Blender The high power Vitamix range of food blenders have been around for nearly 100 years. We bought our model 5000 around ten years ago after seeing a demonstration at the Malvern Three Counties Showground in 2009 or 2010. Certainly not the cheapest on the market...

Return of the Nematodes - Slug and Snail Control

Slugs & Snails After the dry and sunny Spring 2020, the Met Office promised a day of drizzle at the beginning of meteorological summer. Ideal weather for applying slug nematodes in the Kitchen Garden. This biological treatment is my main line of defence against most gardener’s worst nightmare....

Additions to The Aviary

Things have progressed in the Aviary and there are some newcomers - also some jockeying for position. (link to previous article on the Aviary) We now have added: blue tit, woodpecker, robin and lesser black backed gull. The latter are pests in Hereford. They nest on chimney tops and fly round aggressively...

It’s a small world...

Last year one of my birthday presents (!) was a digital microscope. I’ve always enjoyed using them since my days at the John Innes Institute in the 1970s when I used one to look at the stages of pollen development in anthers - particularly tobacco and Datura - part of our work on pollen culture.The...