Own Grown Gardening

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...

    Recently, Plymouth City Council here in the South West of England, installed living roofs on nine of their bus shelters along Royal Parade in the city centre. I think they look great. The Council plans to install 36 across the city . Right now, the bees are just loving them, swarming all over the pot marjoram in full bloom.  These roofs are designed to help such pollinators. They are planted with a plethora of native wildflowers and sedum. It is a shame you can't see many of them from the ground because sedum in particular is such a beautiful genus of drought tolerant succulent plants . They change colour through the season depending on the weather conditions. I'll demonstrate. I bought these plants from a nursery where it was well sheltered in partial shade. This is what they looked like straight after repotting, like green emeralds. In a matter of weeks in a location exposed to full sun and wind they transformed into red rubies, equally as beautiful. Such wonderful ...

The title of this post sounds like a children's fairytale. Entirely unintended. I guess, in a way though, it is rather fitting because although ragwort ( Senecio jacobaea ) with it's delightful, and prolific, yellow flowers has many benefits, it also possessed what some consider a dark side. We have all the ingredients of a Grimm's fairytale me thinks, hahah! Ragwort, although native to the UK, is classified by the government as an injurious weed . Why, you might ask, is it so vilified? It's because the plant contains toxins, called pyrrolizidine alkaloids , that cause liver damage and even death to grazing animals such as horses and cattle. My neighbour remembers back in the day the government advising the public to destroy any ragwort plants they encountered. Even now, DEFRA publishes a Code of Practice on How to Prevent the Spread of Ragwort . However, many environmental conservation groups, such as Buglife , rail against this advice. This is because ragwort is such ...

I attended a thought provoking event today. It was a Science Policy Interface group meeting of the VISIONARY project . As you'll see on their website, the goal of this project is to identify ways to make Europe's food provision more sustainable (economically, environmentally, and socially). This particular meeting consisted of stakeholders (producers, customers, and staff) of the Tamar Valley Food Hub . The food hub connects local food producers with local customers living in and around the Tamar Valley, on the border between Devon and Cornwall. One of the questions we explored today was: how can we promote local food systems? We all acknowledged there is no easy answer to this question. Someone suggested maybe there is a lack of consumer motivation to buy local. Let's explore this idea with a thought experiment. Imagine a shelf in your local supermarket stocked with two lots of carrots, both at the same price and of the same quality. One lot is marked as locally grown with...

I'm working a new allotment plot this season and, as I normally do, I planted broad beans. I watched the little seedlings grow, but my glee quickly turned to concern when I noticed a curious problem develop. All the young leaves acquired these little notches along their edges. Below, you can see what I mean, like little peck marks, but they seemed too uniform and neat for pigeon damage... I felt puzzled. So, as I do, I commenced some research and RHS quickly offered the answer: pea and bean weevils ( Sitona lineatus). The leaf damage is caused by adult weevils. They overwinter in field margins and then fly in spring seeking out legumes, preferably beans and peas, on which to feed. Once fed, they lay their eggs in the soil around these same plants. Their larvae then feed on the plant's nitrogen fixing root nodules (housing rhizobia ). To quench your curiosity, you can see clusters of rhizobia filled root nodules growing on the broad bean roots below. My natural next question wa...