Own Grown Gardening

Right now, the Government is consulting on our vision for England's future land use and how to achieve it. The consultation closes 25 April 2025, so there is still plenty of time remaining to contribute. If you wish to do so, head over to DEFRA's website . It is well worth it. Several questions were seriously on point. So much so, I felt the need to throw my own ideas into the ring. I've included them below. I highly recommend submitting your own thoughts too. Question What are the policies, incentives and other changes that are needed to support decision makers in the agricultural sector to deliver this scale of land use change, while considering the importance of food production? My Response Money is of course the biggest incentive regardless of how depressing it is to say it. If landscape stewardship schemes provide farmers and land owners enough financial incentive to adopt them, they will embrace them whether or not they fundamentally believe in their benefits. If, how...

I end up collecting so much rubbish on my walks through Radford Woods, it feels necessary to start recording it. Sigh. 07 April 2025 04 April 2025 01 April 2025 26 March 2025 24 March 2025 19 March 2025 13 March 2025 11 March 2025 04 March 2025 03 March 2025 28 February 2025 27 February 2025 26 February 2025 25 February 2025 22 February 2025 21 February 2025 17 February 2025 15 February 2025 14 February 2025 13 February 2025 12 February 2025 11 February 2025 09 February 2025 08 February 2025 06 February 2025   04 February 2025   03 February 2025 02 February 2025 26 January 2025 24 January 2025 21 January 2025 20 January 2025 16 January 2025 10 January 2025   Radford Woods, Hooe, Plymstock, Plymouth What a special place.

I had a lovely harvest of pumpkins this year and I didn't want them going to waste. I wanted a recipe to use for storing the glut.  This lead me to the idea of candied pumpkin. With nothing to lose, I experimented and was blown away by the result. Everyone who tries these candied gems invariably requests a second helping. Ingredients: - Peeled pumpkin - 1kg - Demerara sugar - 500g - Cold water - Cloves - 15 buds - Ground cinnamon - 1 tbs - Lemon juice - from 1 lemon - Icing sugar - 10g Instructions Cut the peeled pumpkins into cubes about the size of large gaming dice.  Put the cubes in a large pot and add cold water until they are just covered.  Add the demerara sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and cloves to the pot and stir all the ingredients together. Heat the pot to boiling, while stirring occasionally and gently. You want the pumpkin cubes to stay intacted. Turn down the heat to a low simmer. Leave the lid off your pot. Keep the mixture simmering until the liquid evapo...

Last Sunday, after the wind of storm Bert, I walked through my local wood to assess the damage. The number of downed trees felt devastating. The most striking part of the walk though was not this. Instead, it was the strange accumulations of foam I found at the base of several trees, ones still standing. I'll show you what I mean. Totally odd, isn't it? The fact I found such accumulations at the base of several trunks is what really piqued my interest.  When I got home, I had to investigate. After a little Googling, I hit the jackpot. It looks like soap suds because, it is soap suds . I know, I was surprised too. If you've ever watched Fight Club , you'll know that traditional soap is made from just two ingredients: tallow and lye . If you've never watched Fight Club, seriously, watch it. Tallow is made from rendered animal fat, while lye is made from filtered wood ash. Bringing this story back to foamy trees , ash floats through the air, just think about the smok...

I'm shocked I didn't write this post a couple months ago. It completely slipped my mind for some reason. Better late than never! This year, I experimented growing wheat in our allotment plots. Yes, you read this right, wheat. I realise it is an unconventional choice for an allotment. I think that is why I chose to do it. I'm always looking to do something a bit different. If you examine this photo, you might notice something rather curious. This wheat is growing differently than what you see in bog-standard farmers' fields in the UK where the wheat all looks the same, knee high with uniform ears missing awns (whiskers).  As you can see, my wheat is totally different. Far more unruly, just the way I like it, hahah! The individual plants are growing at different heights, most way over the knee. There is also incredible variation in the wheat ears, some have long awns, others have none. Some ears are huge, others have far fewer kernels. What is going on here? Why is there ...

As you might know, a few months ago, we moved house. As part of that gargantuan endeavour, we moved our fruit orchard as well. It was a totally mad time of year, at the beginning of summer, to move the young trees. All of them, cherries, apples, medlars, and plums, sulked the entire summer. Some dropped nearly all their leaves, but thankfully all survived. I'm hoping this winter gives them a good chance to establish themselves properly. I'm feeling optimistic. I'm currently feeling so positive, I decided this week to take the orchard to it's next phase. My vision for this little orchard has always been to grow, what I like to call, an Orchard Garden. I think of an Orchard Garden as a lush green grove of fruit trees under planted with a plethora of soft fruits ( currant bushes , gooseberries , honeyberries , etc.) and those bushes still further under planted with a ground cover of strawberries , herbs , and wildflowers . I want to establish an ecosystem focused on food p...