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Growing fruit and veg for recreation, exercise, well-being, improved diet, community – we all recognise the benefits.  What about taking it to the next stage? Yes, making money. I had a surplus of winter salads that had had a lovely fresh growth spurt.  I’d known about Local Greens, and met/worked with some of the inspirational …

April to May is the hungry gap – winter veg are over and spring sowings are yet to come online.  This is when perennial veg come into their own.  Asparagus is busting through right now, for example, with all the vitality of spring, having stored summer energy in its underground crown. Sorrel is a leaf …

Phacelia: pherny and phlowery. Or it would be if I hadn’t just cut it down yesterday.  Sown in September, now left to wilt and melt into the soil, it’s going to provide a lovely green manure for my drying beans, making them extra nutritious and successful. Phacelia is a nitrogen-fixing legume. Nodules on the roots …

Elsewhere I’ve written about preparing to have resilience crop-wise (drying beans, brassicas), and in this spirit I decided to grow quinoa this year. It’s a high protein grain and stores well. I find it really tasty and often have it for breakfast with avocado and a ginger, coriander oil, tamari and lemon dressing.  It’s a …

Honey bees and bumblers were gulping down nectar at Victoria (plum) central today. Hover flies and plain black flies were also hanging around. We have three trees close together and crops are always sensational. Victoria plums are self-fertile but, as most top fruit, they crop more when there’s additional pollination from another plant. Even when …

Harvesting the compost is a job that happens two or three times a year. Sifting, sorting and putting the lovely crumbly black stuff around plant roots. Mangetout peas, baby bramley and plum benefited this time.