Own Grown Gardening

On the weekend, I planted out some of my pea plants for the season, a couple varieties. 'Meteor' is a dwarf variety I'm trying for the first time this year. The other is an early sugar snap variety called 'Sugar Ann'. I grew it last year. They were crisp and delicious straight off the plant. So good, I'm not sure a single one made it as far as the kitchen door, but I'm digressing before I even start. As I planted out these seedlings, I though it might be nice to give you a bit of a flavour of one way I protect the precious soil around my plants. I use wool. When I say wool, I mean raw sheep's fleece. Now, you might be wondering, how does one obtain raw sheep fleeces without owning livestock? Well, In the UK, and particularly here in Devon, there are sheep dotting the hillsides all over the place. I tend to contact local farmers directly by email. The UK Fleece Directory is a priceless resource. I love the fact this website has a section that breaks do...

It's silly really, but growing  azolla fills me with such satisfaction. Today, I'm here to spread that joy. So what is azolla? Bizarrely, it's an aquatic fern that grows floating on the surface of pond water like duckweed. As far as I'm concerned, its humble appearance hides a spark of magic.  Although unrelated to legumes such as beans and peas, like them, azolla can fix nitrogen from the air. Nice! Azolla achieves this by forming a  symbiotic relationship with the cyanobacterium Anabaena azollae. Anabeana fixes nitrogen sharing it with the azolla while in return the azolla houses and protects the anabeana in special egg shaped cavities in its scale looking leaves.  If that isn't magic, I don't know what is. If that isn't enough for you, just listen to this. Paleoclimatologists have  discovered that during the middle Eocene, approximately 40 million years ago, giant rafts of azolla grew on the surface of the Arctic Ocean, a tropical environment back the...

I'm feeling conscious my last post was rather sterile with so much text and no photos. I'm determined to rectify that today.   This is my first time growing pak choi and boy am I pleased with the results. I'm growing them interplanted with carrots, the ferny looking foliage, along with chard which are more difficult to distinguish from the pak choi. They both have wide spreading leaves.     Some stinging nettles have opportunistically taken up residence between these plants. An unexpected welcome addition. Honestly.    Nettles provide so many benefits. First of all,  nettles refuse to grow in anything but nitrogen rich soil indicating my raised planter is fertile. Considering how well everything is growing in it that's a bit of a given, but added confirmation is nice too. By the way, nettles are brilliant additions for your compost bin to help activate decomposition.   Additionally, nettles are delicious. Nettle tea, nettle soup, nettle pesto, Cornish...