Another rustic effort with building a raised bed. I am not building for looks but basic practicality. As a recycler I often depend on what there is around me. I had the pallets and collars but I wanted it to be a raised-off-the-ground bed, so it needed legs. There were several options to give it … More New Start 4: Raised Bed (3)
It’s quite sad to think we’ve reached the ‘end of’ days. End of long summer nights, end of summer harvests etc. and although I still have some plants on the go, the greenhouse is looking a bit forlorn without all the tomato plants. Usually the hydroponic tank races away with tomato growth, but not this … More September Harvests
When I first started growing tomatoes, I had a great deal of success. Everything seemed surprisingly easy, but then I thought I could improve things. I listened to experts and tried all the recommended ways. Having a tomato nursery just five minutes’ away, I learned how they grew their tomatoes. They are grown hydroponically, in … More I Got It Wrong
When you faithfully sow seeds and expect the result to be the same as the picture on the seed packet and your results are not quite the same, it’s easy to blame the supplier or the seeds. In fact maybe the compost wasn’t right, the sun wasn’t hot enough. Then it comes to a point … More A Harvest Of Dreams
It was so soul-destroying seeing new life burst out in plants, only to have it mowed down by a late frost. The weather was warming up, plants in the greenhouse doing well and starting to take up space. A few days in the sun to harden them off, and since all was well, they were … More Ice Age In Spring
With the feeling I was getting somewhere at last, I was about to start filling the larger, raised bed, then thought this was the opportunity to turn it into a square foot gardening bed (SFG), but didn’t know too much about it. Mel Bartholomew, a civil engineer, was the inventor of the system and he … More A New Start 3 – Raised Beds And SFG
My problem with raised beds as with everything else, is space. I couldn’t see how I could fit a decent-sized raised bed, in a postage stamp-sized garden. The answer came from one of my fellow isolating neighbours when he asked if I would like some pallet collars, although I wasn’t really sure what they were … More A New Start 2 – The Raised Beds
It’s been a long time since I blogged anything. Probably with good reason. Illness was the first to slow me down, so I was totally unorganised for the start of the sowing season, more unorganised than usual that is. The weather wasn’t good but in spite of that, I had been considering ways of making … More A New Start
Throughout the year, and especially at the beginning of the new year, seed catalogues flood through the letter box like there was no tomorrow. Besides the hard copy of the catalogue, you also get bombarded with emails from the same companies. If you do order something, then adverts pop up on your computer’s browser. It … More Don’t Believe The Adverts
I should never be surprised when seeds, which have been put in five-litre water bottles and tossed outside, actually start to grow. That’s how nature intended it to be, not in plastic bottles of course, but to battle their way through winter for only the strongest to survive. I am much later than normal at … More Hitting The Bottle
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