One thing Jo and I have definitely learned over the last 5 or so years of growing our own fruit and veg from seed: sowing too early rarely rewards you with the early crops you’re hoping for, unless you’re very lucky, or have a very good propagation setup. Yes, it’s tempting to get going just …
A few years ago, I saw Japanese Wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius) growing in the walled garden at Beningborough Hall. It was an incredible thing: a mass of thick, red, spiny stems, arcing out in all directions from a central crown. And they had a single specimen for sale in the plant shop: mine! It’s taken a …
After January’s appropriate chill, February threw us a curve-ball in the shape of a blast of warm air up from the Canary Islands. A few days of positively June-like warmth saw weed seedlings shooting up, pear and apple blossom buds almost breaking (hopefully they’ll have paused again now the weather has returned to grey, damp …
For Jo’s birthday the other week we both took the day off work and made a tram-and-bus trip down to the National Trust’s Dunham Massey to see their winter garden and maybe pick up a few tips and ideas for enhancing our own patch at this time of year. It was a glorious day, sun-drenched …
A couple of weeks ago I enjoyed the opportunity to work on a rather lovely Bramley’s Seedling tree that hadn’t been pruned for a while and was starting to get too big for its space. The owner of the tree – which was highly productive last year – was very keen that it shouldn’t just …
After researching and constructing a couple of Hugelkultur growing beds for our ‘growing for the future’ project at work recently, I decided that I’d put one in on our allotment as well. Hugelkultur – it’s a German word meaning ‘mound (or hill) culture’ – is a technique developed by Permaculture practitioners that is said to …
January has finally delivered a spell of cold weather – essential for helping apple and pear trees to break dormancy and set blossom at the right time, and for killing off slugs and other pests – and as this photo shows, Plot #59 is hunkered down and riding it out. The ground, when not frozen …
Last Sunday I girded my loins against the chill and headed down to Platt Fields Park in south Manchester for a day of restorative top fruit pruning. The session was organised and run by The Orchard Project, with The Friends of Platt Fields Park, and was led by Mark Simmonds, a Hebden Bridge based orchardist …
The one essential element that’s missing from the cottage(ish) garden that Jo and I have been gradually developing over the past three years is a source of moving water. We didn’t want to put in a pond – if only because we didn’t know much about pond planting or pond care – and all the …
We’ve been talking about reorganising the soft fruit on our main plot for a couple of growing seasons now. This year we’ve rolled up our sleeves and made a start. Raspberries First up: our raspberry patch has been a reasonably productive one for three or four years, but we’ve decided it’s time for a change. …
