Gardening

[Bowwowmeow]

I love gardening. Its the only thing I miss, living on a houseboat. I used to love soil amending, in particular; digging deeply and adding my own home-made compost, and I love growing vegetables.

I used to have a water garden in my old home. Below are pictures my dad found for me. It was all hand-built of concrete and rock by me, all by myself! It had a small reservoir at a higher level which was plumbed to provide a cascade and filter the water at the same time. I used to love to arrange loose stones to change the tone of the running water. It was a very soothing thing to sit near! I built a curving boardwalk along one side of it which followed the natural curve of the pond itself, and I planted a dwarfJapanese maple beside it which spread itself very gracefully across the water. I really miss my water garden. :sorry:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y31/lauralb/lauralb2/WaterGarden002.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y31/lauralb/lauralb2/WaterGarden.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y31/lauralb/lauralb2/WaterGarden001.jpg

[Oracl]

That's very beautiful, BWM, and what an achievement to have created it yourself! :yea:

Did any animals live in the water? Fish? :bfish: :fishies: Frogs?

[Bowwowmeow]

Yes, that's the pond the ducks used to use to raise their babies in, and then I got some of those poor feeder goldfish and put them in the pond. Later, my stepmom bought a few Koi on a whim, and asked to put them in. What could I say? They were very beautiful. Though the house was sold, the new owners kept the pond. It is the only bit of landscaping they did keep. They tore down the fence, and I can see it when i drive by, which I must do twice a week to go get Popa, one of my "customers". It can sometimes be very difficult to see this house, as it was the house I grew up in, and it was not sold under happy circumstances. But, I am happy that the pond is still there, and my maple tree, though I am not able to stop and go up there to see if the fish are still there. :(

[Rainbow]

It looks like it was gorgeous wel done BWM :)

[vegan heart]

Your garden is very much alive in those pics for us all to continue enjoying so thank you for that :smallheart:

My partner and I have recently moved,an exeriance we have found delightful,not least of all because our new home comes with a yard.
We both love gardens,especially this one http://www.chalicewell.org.uk/
but neither of us have any gardening experiance whatsoever.

Aforementioned yard is currently barren but it is our heart's desire to transform it into a sanctuary via container gardening.

Due to being absolute begginers we are clueless as to where to begin etc but would eventually love at least one bench framed by an arched arbor whereon would grow dangling foliage,also lots of containers with various plants that flower during different seasons and at least one stone statue,perhaps of a buddha,surrounded by foliage.Decorative wall plaques and even a painted mural of a winding country lane or similar would be wonderful too.

We both love roses and lavender and are open to any suggestions all of which would be greatly appreciated.Plants which attract butterflies and bees would be good as would particularly fragrant ones.Also I am particularly fond of plants with copper leaves.

So...where to begin

Your suggestions please including very,VERY basic do's and dont's as well as more creative off the wall suggestions...

Also,how about vegan fertilizers/plant food/deterents for plant/flower-harming insects?

Ruthie

:flower:

[Starry]

Beautiful pond Bowwowmeow. :agree:

I also love gardening and my husband and myself raise vegetables and plants from seeds every year. We have planted quite a few already and the fledgling plants are coming up in our greenhouse.

Nothing beats the taste of fresh vegetables from the garden and although they aren't organic we never spray our plants.

I always grow 'cottage garden' flowers, and always have pots and pots of herbs outside the kitchen area.

[Bowwowmeow]

Thanks Vegan Heart and Starry!



So...where to begin

Your suggestions please including very,VERY basic do's and dont's as well as more creative off the wall suggestions...

Also,how about vegan fertilizers/plant food/deterents for plant/flower-harming insects?

Ruthie

:flower: Learning to compost is good, and you can make sure it is vegan when you make it yourself. You don't need a lot of room if you can get or make a compact composting gadget of some sort. But a simple pile will work too. I used to go dumpster diving for grass clippings. A lot of the developments around here use garden services, and they mow the lawns and just dump the clippings in the dumpsters. Very wasteful.
Basic compost starts out as layers of wet and dry materials, with soil sprinkled throughout to provide the necessary microorganisms. Wet stuff is fresh vegetation, like the grass clippings, and kitchen waste, and dry stuff is dead leaves, bark, sawdust, etc. You make alternating layers of each, mix some soil in as you go, and water it. After a few days you can start tossing it about, and watering it if it gets too dry, or you can let it sit, which will take longer. It is worth it to get a book on making compost. Where I live, the garbage collection service collects garden waste from individuals and from landscape maintenance companies, makes compost out of it, and sells it to the public. They do not use manure, just garden waste, so it is vegan. If your waste collection service doesn't do this, you should see about trying to get them to!

Soil amending is very important for a good start. If your plot has been worked before you won't have as much to do. Where I lived the soil was very compacted and clayish, and difficult to work with. I used lots of compost, and peat moss, and gypsum, a mineral powder that is good to use to change the texture of poor soil without changing the pH like ground limestone does. I double-dug my vegetable plots, which means you dig up a section to the depth of your shovel, and then loosen up the subsoil with a heavy spading fork. I used to toss prunings right into the trenches before I filled them up with the topsoil, and they always decayed into the soil by the following season. The only drawback to this kind of digging is the earthworms you occasionally harm. I have heard that they regenerate if cut, and I hope it is true. But if you use a spading fork for most of your soil working you're not as likely to harm the worms. The more time you spend keeping the soil loose and aerated, though, the more likely you are to attract earthworms, as they like loose well-worked soil better. They like to eat the organic matter you add to your soil, and they leave behind very nutritious castings, and keep the soil aerated.
It is important to remember to never work soggy, wet soil, as you will ruin its structure, and drive out all the air pockets. Air is very important to plants roots, though you would think there was any in soil. But there is, and it is vital to the health of the soil and the plants growing in it!
The soil's level of acidity, or pH, can be important for certain plants. Most plants like a neutral soil, with a pH of around 7. Plants like blueberries, camellias, azaleas, ferns, and plants that naturally tend to grow in damp shady areas like a more acidic soil. Peat moss acidifies, as will left-over tea. My gramma drank lots of tea, and watered her ferns with the leftover tea.
If your soil is too acidic for the plants you want to grow, you can add limestone, which will raise the pH. You can get inexpensive soil tests to find out your soil pH, but it is not necessary to do this unless your plants are really doing poorly.
I never had much need of fertilizer, as I added plenty of organic matter to my soil each year. You can make "tea" out of your compost by soaking some in water and then using the "tea" on your plants. If you think you need something stronger, I think you can get stuff from the web that is organic and vegan.

Once your soil is in order you can plant just about anything that will grow in your climate without too much trouble. Most plants like full sun, and all vegetables do. Just make sure that frost sensitive annuals don't get planted too soon in the year . Most things, like under or over watering, take trial and error, and knowledge of whether the specific plant likes to be moist all the time, or dry out between waterings. Herbs, for example, like a poorer quality soil, and will have stronger flavors if you are sparing with the water. Most shade-loving plants like to be kept on the damp side. Cacti, of course, are the other extreme. Roses like lots of water, lavender can do with a lot less. Where I live, lavender is often used as a drought-resistant landscaping plant. It depends on the variety, though.

Vegan insect control can be challenging! You should look into researching companion planting. It is a very interesting study. Some companion plants will ward off insects, like marigolds will do for tomatoes, and some are sacrificial, like nasturtiums amongst cole crops like broccoli and cabbage. Copper tape is supposed to ward off slugs and snails, as is very sharp sand. Sometimes, though, you may just have to hand pick them and take them somewhere else, or trap them and take them away. They like to get on the undersides of things before daybreak, so laying out pieces of cardboard or lumber in the garden, and waiting until they climb on is a good way to trap them for relocation. I never suffered from animal intruders like gophers, rabbits, or deer, so I don't have much advice there. i know they can be very fond of both vegetable patches and ornamental plants!
That's some of the basic knowledge I can think of. Feel free to ask for specifics as you go along! :springfever:

[Dexter]

wow
that's really pretty

just like the lady who made it

hehe

[Bowwowmeow]

Thank you Dexter. Still, it is better to be good than pretty, don't you think? ;)

[Dexter]

Thank you Dexter. Still, it is better to be good than pretty, don't you think? ;)
hmm

so what would be said of those who are both good and pretty? ;)

[Bowwowmeow]

Well, how about that the goodness of their nature makes them prettier than they would be if they were bad? :goodbad:

[Dexter]

Well, how about that the goodness of their nature makes them prettier than they would be if they were bad? :goodbad:
exactly
;)

[Gliondrach]

That's a beautiful pond, Bowwow.

Do you have any containers or window boxes on your houseboat?

If I had a garden I would grow as much as my own food as I could. Part of it would be a forest garden. The non-food part would be mostly a meadow, filled with native wild flowers and grasses. There'd be a pond, of course. I would have a bit of a lawn because dandelions and common daisies need short grass. And blackbirds would like a lawn to hunt for their food.

I have some tubs on my balcony. They have native wild flowers in them. Welsh poppies are in bud and should flower within a few days. The white campions are also in bud. I am waiting for corn and long-headed poppies, cornflowers and corn marigolds. There are some seedlings coming up that I don't recognise. They didn't blow in by the wind because the seed leaves show that the seed is quite big. I have planted various annual seeds this year and a few more perennials, and have forgotten what I have planted.

[Phoenix]

Beautiful pond / garden BWM. :agree:

If I had a garden I would grow as much as my own food as I could. Part of it would be a forest garden. The non-food part would be mostly a meadow, filled with native wild flowers and grasses. There'd be a pond, of course. I would have a bit of a lawn because dandelions and common daisies need short grass.
Sounds like heaven, Gliondrach. :)

[Bowwowmeow]

That's a beautiful pond, Bowwow.

Do you have any containers or window boxes on your houseboat? Yes, I have some jasmine outside one bedroom window, and gardenias outside the other. I have my grandmother's cymbidiums and cacti, too, and a small bonsai collection.

If I had a garden I would grow as much as my own food as I could. Part of it would be a forest garden. The non-food part would be mostly a meadow, filled with native wild flowers and grasses. There'd be a pond, of course. I would have a bit of a lawn because dandelions and common daisies need short grass. And blackbirds would like a lawn to hunt for their food.

I have some tubs on my balcony. They have native wild flowers in them. Welsh poppies are in bud and should flower within a few days. The white campions are also in bud. I am waiting for corn and long-headed poppies, cornflowers and corn marigolds. There are some seedlings coming up that I don't recognise. They didn't blow in by the wind because the seed leaves show that the seed is quite big. I have planted various annual seeds this year and a few more perennials, and have forgotten what I have planted. It will be a nice surprise when they grow up, then!

Your dream garden sounds a lot like mine. I would make sure to have plenty of shrubs to attract birds, and lots of flowers that attract bees and butterflies. :flower: :hummingbird: :butterfly2:

[Gliondrach]

Those unrecognisable seedlings have been recognised. I noticed yesterday that they were taking on the form of sun spurges. I pulled the blighters up. They are quite charming plants but they seed all over the place. That's how these ones managed to get a foothold. The juice can be fatal if swallowed and can cause phototoxicity if it gets on the skin. I had three of them last year and allowed them to go to seed. The seeds are small but the seed leaves looked as if they'd come from large seeds. I still have one spurge in one of the pots. It started growing weeks ago and is already in flower. One Welsh poppy opened two days ago. Two white campions are showing white in their buds. Some of the corn poppies are getting quite big but no buds are showing. The coca leaves will soon be ready for harvesting and Reggie and Ronnie Kray's nephew will arrange distribution.

[paul]

the roses are having a second life , chillie peppers are still producing, a tomato plant has apeered from no where.

[Oracl]

My herbs are doing really well here in Brisbane. :excited: I had some problems growing them in the humid climate in Cairns. These were all started from small seedlings this spring. They are in pots because we are renting here and when we move I will want to take them all with me. :gardening:

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r304/Oracl/Herbs1.jpg


http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r304/Oracl/Herbs2.jpg


http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r304/Oracl/Herbs3.jpg

[paul]

looking good oracl, i can smell and taste them from here.

[thevegantwins]

I recognize the beautiful basil, Oracl. Are you going to make loads of pesto?

[Keykeypie]

AW....so nice to see some lovely green on this gloomy November day here.:snow::broccoli: :bolt:

[Oracl]

These herbs are particularly healthy this year. I found a nice little plant nursery nearby and their stuff is very good. :flower:

Yes, TVT, I will let Mr Cal know that we need loads of pesto made. :chef: He needs to be kept busy. ;) :D

[Blueshark]

I got this today :D :

http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/5333/picture4zm8.th.jpg (http://img78.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture4zm8.jpg)

It is a Tillandsia, and absolutely fascinating. They are often referred to as Airplants, since they obtain nutrients from the air.

They only require water to survive, but through the leaves, not the roots. Pure water makes them ill, and is possibly fatal.

I would take a better picture, but my digital camera is in some storage box.

[thevegantwins]

Cool plant, I don't think I"ve ver seen one of those around here. Do you mist the leaves then? :rubchin: I wonder how long it would take me to kill one of those?

[Blueshark]

Thanks, it is. I misted the leaves today, but I have read that the plant requires a much more intensive watering than that. But I am going to keep a close eye on it for the next two weeks, and attempt to find the optimum watering amount/cycle.

I figure these plants are extremely hardy, so I don't want to overindulge it.

[Oracl]

What an amazing plant, Yam Yam. :agree: Can you eat it? :eat:

[Blueshark]

They are amazing.

I guess if they are not toxic, they could be prepared to an edible state.

What is really cool, is that they only flower once, and reproduce asexually, AND I could grow one on my car dashboard if I wanted to :hyper:

[Blueshark]

An update on my Tillandsia:

It requires a lot of water. I use tap water in a regular mister, and also a fine mister. I apply water in the mornings and allow the leaves to dry out by evening.

The leaves are dry when they become grey and shiny. The leaves are starved when they become limp.

I just realised an absolute great application for them, is in Dioramas. I built some of these as a child, similar to this one:
http://www.battlefront.co.nz/Images/Dioramas/WS-diorama-01.jpg

Rather than artificial foliage, these plants could be used, for added authenticity, and fun to the models. In a way forces the modeller to maintain them regularly. :lightbulb: :princess: :order:

[KRITER]

Thats rite wild.Im into gardening big time.Been geting all the catalogs in the last 2 weeks.Im wanting to gro everything in them.Cant hardly wait for Spring but reckon I got to.

[Gliondrach]

I have a Christmas cactus in bloom. Or it might be an Easter cactus. It started flowering about a week ago. In its time it has flowered just after Christmas and just before Easter. It might be an Eastmas cactus or a Chreaster cactus. The flowers look more like those of a Christmas one but the leaves look like those on an Easter one. It is probably confused about the correct time to flower because there is no heat in the house in the Winter and they are supposed to be kept at 55 degrees. I might be giving it too much water too early in the season.

The flowers are a beautiful crimonsy pink.

There is still a marigold in flower on the balcony. I have had marigolds in flower right through the Autumn and Winter.

I'm thinking of buying a geranium - a pelargonium one - but all I see in the shops are the double flowered type. I like the old single flowered ones. I always had one in the window when I was a teenage-type.

[Gliondrach]

Gardeners' World today was about allotments. There was a vegan woman who has just taken on an allotment. And a vegetarian who wants to try vegan-organic gardening. I might ask if any local vegans want to share an allotment with me. There should be enough food from one to feed three or four people.

[Oracl]

I might ask if any local vegans want to share an allotment with me. There should be enough food from one to feed three or four people.
That sounds like an excellent idea. :agree: You could make compost there and grow heaps of different food plants. :)

[Gliondrach]

Some people say that I already make a lot of compost - every time I speak.

[Oracl]

Well you should ignore those rude people. :)

[my3labs]

I bought my first rose bush a few weeks ago. I have aphids!! My sister told me to buy some stuff that will kill the aphids...of course I don't want to do that. Any ideas on how to get rid of them without hurting them?

[paul]

For a long time solution planting chives or nasturtium near by is meant to help.

[Tails4wagging]

I had aphids on my camelia bush, I sprayed the bush with diluted washing up liquid. That seems to have worked.

[paul]

good luck martin, and the rest of you, keep gardening.

[thevegantwins]

The kids and I went to the organic farm on Friday and picked 2 buckets full of green beans and purple beans plus mustard greens, lots of zucchini/courgette, basil, parsley, and about 40 garlic bulbs. The garlic is drying on the balcony. I now have about 100 garlic bulbs w/ stems bundled and drying. That should last us for a few months.

[thevegantwins]

You like loads of garlic then?:)


Just a little. :drac: :D

[Oracl]

Sounds good, Tails. :)

[Gliondrach]

Farmer Tails.

[paul]

One thing i found my toms,peppers strawberry's liked was tea,i would put used tea bags in a watering can for a day or so filled with water of course then just water them,with it , i just added a couple of tea bags every day, they thrived on it.

[Gliondrach]

Yes, I've heard of tea being used. Don't add too much milk and sugar though.

[Oracl]

It feels so good to be able to grow some of your own food. :agree:

[Oracl]

Excellent! :thumbsup:

[Gliondrach]

My wildflowers didn't come to anything this year. Just the usual white campion that's grown for a few years. The others came up as seedlings but didn't flower. No poppies, corn marigolds, corn chamomiles, none of anything else.

[Gliondrach]

Gardener's World last week was about wildflower rivers. A bit like wildlife corridors. Sarah Raven has started a campaign to get people to plant native wildflowers connecting up places like woods, churchyards, meadows and roadside verges. This is to allow insects to move around the country. They can't always get from one patch of woods to another, or one meadow to another if there is too much distance between them.

I am going to do some wildflower bombing next year. Or this Autumn. The idea is to make a ball of muddy soil with seeds in it. You throw it to places you can't get to. Some people use them to throw seeds on to motorway verges from bridges, or to motorway roundabouts. There's a railway line at the top of my street which should be a good place to bomb. The flowers could spread all over the country.

[Bowwowmeow]

That sounds beautiful. ^^^ :colors:

I went with my Dad to our place in Petaluma yesterday. I wanted to get some of my planter boxes from my old house and use them on the boat, as I really miss gardening. I found them, and some plant stands. I've been working on getting the upper deck arranged this summer, and I have some strawberry plants in pots, and a blueberry bush.

There were still lots of very late season blackberries, so I picked a basket, and the walnuts look good this year. They won't be ready for a few more weeks though.

There's no fence between our property and our neighbor's, so his dogs came over to say hello, and I saw their chickens running around. They keep them for eggs, which is not as bad as keeping them for meat I guess. One of them came close, and starting making chicken noises, so I made them back, and she stopped wandering around and looked right at me, and talked back a little. I seem to be really good at making animal noises, and I do love having conversations with animals. :shy:

Then we went north to Sebastopol. I wanted to find the Lone Pine Gardens, because they sell tree seedlings and other bonsai stuff. We found them, but they were closed! We stopped at another nursery though, a Japanese one, in Cotati, and had a look. I got a maple seedling, a Japanese Red Pine seedling, some dwarf Mondo grass, and some black Mondo grass. And a bag of organic bonsai soil.

There was a really cute kitty wandering through the nursery. I meowed at him, and said "prrrrrrrrrrrrrp", and he came running over to see us. I love meeting friendly kitties! There were also dozens if not hundreds of bees in the nursery, sipping water from the soil surfaces and drainage holes in pots, as well as visiting this huge flowering vine. It was in the mid-nineties, so it was no wonder there were bees all over, drinking water. I enjoyed seeing so many bees. I even saw a shiny black carpenter bee, buzzing in the hole he'd made in a board in the shade structure over the seedlings. My Dad and I are the only ones in the family who share a love of "bugs", and he likes to grow bonsai too. He bought some varigated bamboo, and a small juniper seedling. We had a really nice time. :)

[Oracl]

I like reading this thread. :smallheart:

It is spring here so it's time to think about rejuvenating my herb garden, which has looked a bit sad during winter. :updn:

[Gliondrach]

They're what we botanists call a delicate perennial.

[Gliondrach]

I have almost as many as Fuzzy has medals.

[Gliondrach]

He only wears them with his dress uniform. The glare from them can be very dazzling in the sunshine.

[Bowwowmeow]

I put in winter crops of lettuce, broccoli, celery, Brussels sprouts, and spinach before I left. I'll have to take pictures.

Oh yeah, and some parsley, dill, and chives. I've also put in basil, which I've never tried to grow in winter, but there is absolutely no frost here on the water, so we'll see how it goes.

This is my first go at planting veggies in containers on my boat. I don't know how the salt air will affect them, but I really miss vegetable gardening.

[Gliondrach]

Tails Cousteau.

[Pob]

It all sounds a bit fishy to me.

[Gliondrach]

I have three nettle plants growing in one of my pots on the balcony. There was one that grew last year. A seed must have blown in. At first, I didn't think they were stinging nettles. I was going to make nettle soup but thought better of it when I wasn't sure if they were stinging nettles. Then I discovered that they are stinging nettles. Home grown food - you can't beat it. I hope I can eat it.

[Gliondrach]

Yes, you just need to hold them over some heat to get rid of the stingingness. I'd have to test them on my hands before putting them in my mouth, though.

[thevegantwins]

Remember, if you have any arthritic conditions, tendonitis etc., you can treat yourself with stinging nettle. I stick my hands, wrists and elbows into a huge stinging nettle patch every week at the farm. I'd be at the chiropractor if I didn't.

[Gliondrach]

Is your carpal tunnel any better?

[thevegantwins]

Is your carpet tunnel any better?

It's been fine as long as I do the stinging nettle treatments regularly. I went 2 weeks without doing it a few weeks ago and my hand started hurting again. I brought some clippings home last week and have it drying on the balcony. If it works with dried stinging nettles, I'm going to cut alot before winter arrives and dry it on the balcony so I can treat myself all winter long.

[Gliondrach]

Eh!? What are you going on about? Who mentioned carpets? Spelling mistake? What spelling mistake?

[Gliondrach]

I brought some clippings home last week and have it drying on the balcony. If it works with dried stinging nettles, I'm going to cut alot before winter arrives and dry it on the balcony so I can treat myself all winter long.

Grow your own. The three on my balcony grew because seeds will have fallen from the one I had last year. That will have grown because a seed somehow managed to get into the pot. Either wind-blown or bird-brought. Get some with flowers and shake them over a pot. Or lay them on the soil so the seeds fall out. You might even be able to start selling nettle products.

And you'll be helping wildlife because many beasts rely on nettles.

[Gliondrach]

I just saw the last few minutes of a programme called A Farm for the Future, on Friday. What I saw was so interesting that I searched for it online to watch again. A wildlife film maker comes from a family that farms in Devon. She went in search of ways to manage the farm when oil begins to run out. She spoke to people who run farms on permaculture methods and some forest gardeners. One bloke called Martin Crawford has a forest garden with 550 species of plants. He said that a properly managed forest garden could feed 10 people for each acre, which is about twice what a farm could feed. It only needs about 50 days work a year, mainly harvesting, and 10 days for maintenance a year.

Another bloke who has a smallholding in the Welsh hills grows gorse bushes amongst his food plants to produce nitrates and bracken to produce potash. The birds in the woods provide the soil with phosphates in their droppings. And he keeps some ducks to eat slugs.

It is a fascinating programme.

Search for 'A Farm for the Future' on:

bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search/?q=Natural%20world

[Gliondrach]

Plants For A Future is a resource centre for rare and unusual plants, particularly those which have edible, medicinal or other uses. We practise vegan-organic permaculture with emphasis on creating an ecologically sustainable environment based largely on perennial plants.

pfaf.org/index.php

[Gliondrach]

I have some spinach seeds. I'm going to buy some potting compost and grow them on the windowsill. I'll put them in a tray - I won't just dump the soil on the windowsill.

[Gliondrach]

Growing For Health- The Leaf Beets
By Pauline Lloyd


This group of leafy-green vegetables of the family Amaranthaceae includes Chard, Leaf Beet and True Spinach.

Cultivation:

Chard (Beta vulgaris var. cicla)
Chard can be sown from April to July for a crop of vitamin-and-mineral-rich green leaves, plus a supply of succulent midribs. Chard is a colourful and ornamental vegetable, which has large, green, crinkled leaves and makes an extremely decorative and attractive addition to the vegetable patch or border. Common varieties include rainbow chard (consisting of a mixture of different coloured midribs), Swiss chard (which has a white midrib), rhubarb chard (this variety has red midribs), canary yellow (with yellow midribs) and oriole orange (orange midribs). Why not sow a mixture of varieties for an eye-catching display!


Leaf Beets - Perpetual Spinach (Beta vulgaris)
Easy to grow and hardy, perpetual spinach is a biennial plant, which resembles true spinach, but is not as prone to bolting in hot, dry weather. It is a very useful and productive vegetable, although perhaps not so attractive to look at as chard. I always have a supply of perpetual spinach in my vegetable garden and I find that apart from the leaves sometimes being nibbled by slugs it seems to be almost disease and pest resistant. The leaves tend to die back in the winter, but start to produce a crop of new, young, green leaves in the spring, before eventually going to seed in the second year. I make two sowings of perpetual spinach annually, the first in April and the second in August, which provides me with an all-year-round supply of this very useful and nutritious vegetable. Incidentally, this group also includes Erbette, a leaf beet, which is grown for its small cut-and-come-again green leaves. It resembles perpetual spinach, but is not as hardy.


True Spinach (Spinacia oleracea)
By making successional sowings of several different varieties it's possible to produce a supply of home-grown spinach for most of the year. The most commonly used varieties include Giant American and Giant Winter, Bloomsdale, Matador, Monnopa, Mediana and New Zealand Spinach. New Zealand Spinach (Tetragonia expansa) is technically not a true spinach, but it is drought resistant, has a long growing season and is easier to grow than true spinach, so I have included it here. True Spinach is an annual and seed is usually sown from March to July. It should be watered well in dry weather. You will need to consult individual seed packets for the exact planting instructions. Personally, I have never had much success with the later-sown, winter varieties of true spinach, even where I live in the south of England, and find that a late sowing of perpetual spinach is much more reliable.


Note: All of the beets need to be harvested regularly in order to encourage new leaf production.


Uses:

For optimum nutrition spinach is best eaten lightly steamed, juiced or used raw in salads whenever possible, in order to preserve it's antioxidants. However, it can also be used in a variety of cooked dishes. Try adding some to quiches, terrines and pies, using it in pizza toppings, pureed in dips, or adding it to soup. It can even be used to colour home-made pasta. Young chard can be eaten raw in salads, but the mature leaves and stalks are usually cooked to reduce their bitter flavour. It is often recommended that the leaves and stems of chard should be cooked separately, but this is not strictly speaking necessary. Note: Due to the high oxalate content of this group of vegetables it is best to avoid cooking them in aluminium pans.


Health Benefits:
Both chard and spinach are very high in vitamin K - a vitamin that is important for maintaining bone health and may also help to prevent arthritis. Lutein and Zeaxanthin are two antioxidants, found in high levels in spinach. They may help to reduce the risk of macular degeneration and cataracts. A study carried out by Harvard researchers found that people eating the most Lutein and Zeaxanthin - an average of 5.8mg per day - had a 57 percent decreased risk of macular degeneration, compared with people eating the least. Foods rich in lutein are also thought to help to prevent cancer.


Nutrition:
Spinach is high in antioxidants, especially when it is eaten raw. It is also high in protein. According to the Vegetarian Resource Group one cup of cooked spinach will provide 13g protein, whereas a cup of cooked soya beans provides only 9.6g protein. The Wikipedia estimates its protein content to be 2.9g/100g. Spinach is also a useful source of fibre (2.2g/100g) and contains 99mg/100g of calcium, although due to its high oxalate content calcium absorption by the body is only about 5% from spinach. Spinach is also a good source of iron, containing about 2.7mg/100g. In the 1870s, spinach mistakenly gained a reputation for being very high in iron as its iron content was reported to be ten times higher than this due to an error arising from a misplaced decimal point. In addition, spinach is a rich source of folate, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K and magnesium. The nutritional analysis for Chard is very similar to that of spinach.
veganorganic.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=73&Itemid=1

AND, THE ABOVE WRITER'S OWN WEBSITE:
btinternet.com/~bury_rd/index.htm Very interesting.


More Articles from VON:

We live and learn
More on no-dig potato growing
Growing Wild
Beating the Blight
The Root Dwellers
Carrots without Tears
How to grow fantastic vegan food indoors
Take a deep breath! Garlic without Tears
Bowel Cancer Busting Broad Beans?
Briefly - starting from scratch
Financial Futures
A Vegan Agricultural Policy?
Under Sowing Green Manures in Vegetable Crops
Composting Galore
Book Review Meine Mischkulturen Praxis

[Gliondrach]

Here's the Amercian Veganic Agriculture Network - not as good as the Brit VON, mentioned above, though.

goveganic.net/

[Gliondrach]

Yes, I like them. Especially the yellow ones.

[Gliondrach]

Wilkinson's shops have quite a few shrubs for £3. I saw kiwi fruit, red currants, figs, gooseberries. And herb seeds with pots for £2. And some red peppers to grow in a pot, also for £2.

[Gliondrach]

I saw some honeysuckle plants yesterday. Only £1.75. I am thinking of putting some nails in the wall on my balcony and putting wires or string on them. Then I can plant a honeysuckle to climb up them. Perhaps a nice scented rose as well.

[Gliondrach]

Yes, I prefer wild native plants. But I've never seen honeysuckle, wild, cultivated or house trained before. I know what it looks like but have never savoured its pong. Good idea if I can find any. I was reading that most types come from China. I don't want Chinese honeysuckle. It might attract yetis.

[Gliondrach]

Yes, it's beautiful. What is the smell like?

[squirrel]

You must get some Martin, the scent is divine

[Gliondrach]

You must get some Martin, the scent is divine

What, the talc powder?

[Gliondrach]

This is true.

[Gliondrach]

Drimlabarra Herb Farm, on the Isle of Arran, is run by vegans Maureen and Keith Robertson, who also set up the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine, which provides training in medical herbalism to BSc and MSc standards, validated by the University of Wales.

They have conducted educational plant and landscape study workshops over the years, as well as volunteer weeks. They have volunteer weeks planned for this year including 10-14 March, 24-28 March, 28 April - 2 May, two more in May, one each in June, August, September and October.

Their aim - if they get the funding they have applied for - is to develop their farm so that they can promote the vegan lifestyle. In their own words:

'We would like to promote the whole vegan lifestyle. We are interested in building a community where people support each other and social interactions are encouraged eg, music, dance, creative arts, and ceremonial observation of the seasonal festivals. We want to attract more volunteers, especially vegans, and in general create a sanctuary where vegans can come and relax in an atmosphere steeped in educational possibilities. Our vision is for a Centre for Green Living with availability of learning programmes based on growing, cooking, medicine-making and self-help, massage, plant study, nutrition, personal development and personal health consultations.'

If you are interested in volunteering, get in touch with them at Drimlabarra Herb Farm, Isle of Arran.

http://www.flickr.com/34632486@N04/?saved=1 In the picture called 'View from Drimlabarra Herb Farm' you can see the unmistakable shape of the isle of Ailsa Craig in the distance, looking like a pyramid. That's where they used to get the stones for the sport of curling.

I'd like to go if my back was up to it

[Gliondrach]

My Christmas Cactus, which flowered from early December to Late January-ish, is in bud again. Only four buds so far. It will probably flower at Easter. I blame climate change. Or the EU.

[Gliondrach]

Yes, I know. When it first flowered it did so at Easter. Then it decided to flower at Christmas in the following years.

[Bowwowmeow]

I've got strawberries and blueberries ripening up now. I did a little snacking this afternoon. :yum:

I've also got watermelon, cucumber, bean, and tomato vines growing nicely, along with some rosemary, two kinds of thyme, basil, and chives.

[squirrel]

Sounds lovely, my strawberries are no-where near ripe yet.

I sowed a load of sunflowers this year but the only one to come up was an escaped seed from the bird-table.

[squirrel]

Ahhhh - a snail ate my one and only sunflower seedling - but at least it didn't get my strawberries!

Poor wee sunflower :sorry:

I've got the happiest snails and slugs in Wales

[Fauxmage]

Ah, those slugs and snails can break your heart sometimes. I remember planting a four foot by twelve foot bed with garden peas, each pea seed two inches apart, planted by hand (that was a LOT of peas). They got about three inches high, and then one morning I went out and they looked like someone had taken a lawn mower to the whole plot. It was slugs. I sat down and cried! :o

[Gliondrach]

I have my usual wild flower seedlings coming up in pots on the balcony. One plant has been trying to grow for three years. It has very large leaves but it seems to die back. It started again this year. I had hopes for it. Then it was flattened. A pigeon had sat on it. Two pigeons were determined to make a nest on the balcony. I kept chasing them. Sometimes every two or three minutes. I finally got rid of them by putting twigs from a rose bush in all the pots and all the places that they'd tried to nest.

Lots of seedlings are now showing and the white campion is in flower.

[Stormy]

Well I have weeded all my plants in pots, and recently planted up a hanging basket with busy lizzies and lobelia, and a couple of other pots too.

I just need to get some more wood chips and some proper weed suppressing material for the bit where a lawn used to be, as the last people living here covered it over for their children's trampoline. But they used a blue plastic sheet which looks awful as it shows through the wood chips, but I am going to keep that going by laying proper material down and add more chips as it is easy to look after in such a small garden.

[Bowwowmeow]

I've got tiny cucumbers and tomatoes the size of ping pong balls. Still plenty of strawberries and blueberries coming along. The lemons are nearly gone though.

[Bowwowmeow]

:( I picked my first cuke and got spines stuck in my finger. Its as bad as a cactus. :cucumber:

I got sweet revenge though. :eat: Cucumber comeuppance goes best with Vegenaise. :vegenaise:

[Gliondrach]

The wild flower seedlings are coming along nicely. I have two types of forget-me-nots in one pot. One is the field forget-me-not and the other is not. I don't know what it is. I have what I think is a corn chamomile - judging by the leaves - but it has never flowered. A seedling of it has grown each year but never flowers. And there are another two plants I don't recognise from the leaves. There were a few sun spurges growing but I pulled most of them up and left one. They seed all over the place and would take over if I left them. There were also some nettles which I pulled up. They grow too big and crowd out the other plants.

There are Welsh poppy plants in three pots but they won't flower until next year. A long-headed poppy has had two flowers with another two to come.

[Stormy]

Oooo lovely Gliondrach :) I grew lavender from seed a few years ago but not many actually came through but I do have about 5 plants out of it which are still with me in pots :)

We have had our home grown strawberries ...there are a few left...the only food thing I have grown this year apart from herbs as I brought the strawberry tub with me already planted up.

I have some weed suppressing material arriving in the next few days so I can then sort out my garden and re wood chip part of it and replace all my planters/pots around it, as it is small and will make it much easier to look after as I am fighting to find time to do everything I need to do at the moment :)

however, I managed to plant up a hanging basket for the back garden, and a few pots with lobelia and buzy lizzies and revamped the other pots I have already all over the place... so that's cool :)

[Gliondrach]

We expect to see some photographic proof in due course.

[Stormy]

I must be getting old and with all this hot weather I am going mad as I have just realised I have repeated myself in my last post from a few posts ago on this thread...doh!!

I think I need to go and get some sleep as I also just hit a hot key and the whole forum disappeared as I was writing this post ahhhh!! :hbang:

Anyway, I will see if I can sort some photos once it looks better:)

[Gliondrach]

Good. I like to see fruit and veggie things that people are growing. It inspires me to consider thinking about possibly doing the same.

[Gliondrach]

I've collected some seeds from the forget-me-nots. They are tiny and black. Although some are not ripe and are white or green. Many more seed pods are nearly ready. I think I'll make some seed bo mbs and throw them here and there to spread wild flowers around. The railway line nearby will be a good place to start.

[Gliondrach]

One of the self-seeded Welsh poppies is in flower. And one of the unindentified plants is in flower. It's in the daisy family but I can't find it in any of my books. The closest match is the scentless mayweed but the leaves are a bit different.

[Gliondrach]

And there's some plant coming up that looks like a climber. Could be in the pea family, possibly some sort of vetch.

[Stormy]

Well, I have been out in my little garden today as it has been a beautiful day, and I put up my solar powered fountain as I love the sound of running water while I am chilling ...and more of my garden sculptures around my plant pots and planters, to go with my big Buddha who is already 0ut there... it is all starting to come together although I have one little area to do still but the guinea pigs are in residence there at the moment...and I also want to get some more plants to replace those I have lost in recent years... and I just need to get another post in to put up my hammock ... I was going to spend sometime out there tomorrow, with Torr and his sandpit and paddling pool, and take some photos but it looks like we are in for a wetter day tomorrow :( but hope to get some photos taken soon :)

[Gliondrach]

Sounds very nice. All you need now is a small bit of native meadowland. Like I have on my balcony.

A few years ago I had a big-ish birdsfoot trefoil plant. Then one day I noticed it full of large caterpillas. Some were green and some were brown. They stripped it within a few days and it never grew again. But it was good to see it supporting wildlife.

[squirrel]

We had a hedgehog in the garden over the weekend. Wasn't very sociable though - curled up in ball when the dogs went to say hello.

[Gliondrach]

They should have rolled him around a bit to teach hm some manners.

[Gliondrach]

The plant that I thought was a pea family one has curled a tendril round a piece of twig I put near it.

[squirrel]

They should have rolled him around a bit to teach hm some manners.

Wish I could teach the damn slugs some manners - they've eaten all the tops off my onions now.
Will onions still grow without their green leaves?

[Gliondrach]

I don't know. Have you tries putting prickly things round the onion plants? Bits of rose twigs, coarse grit. It's a wonder someone hasn't developed strips of spiky things to put round vegetable beds - like the strips for tops of walls to deter cats.

[Gliondrach]

I've identified another of the unidentified wild plants in my balcony meadow. The flower started opening yesterday but was fully open today. I recognised it as a member of the cabbage family - four yellow petals in the shape of a cross. It is a charlock. Strangely enough, a few days ago before I knew what it was I was thinking of using the name in the vegan names thread. But I thought it was poisonous. I've now found out that has been used as a food plant. So I can use it in that thread.

The meadow (well, four pots) is looking nice with a mass of blue forget-me-nots, red poppies, the white and yellow daisy-like wotsit and white campions. There was a yellow Welsh poppy open but it has lost all its petals. More of them in bud, though. Some corn marigolds will soon be open. And the pea-flower/vetch will soon-ish be open and then I'll be able to identify it.

[squirrel]

My pheasant berry is doing nicely - it appears to be slug resistant!

There were a pair of bullfinches on the bird table this morning. They're so beautiful, with their black heads and crimson chest.

[Gliondrach]

Two days ago, Saturday, I noticed something strange in my wild flower meadow. I mean the tubs with wild flowers and bits of grass in them. One of the corn poppies had extra petals. Poppies have four petals but this one had some smaller ones in the middle, lying above the four normal ones. A bit like wild roses having five petals and cultivated ones having many petals. But this is a wild poppy grown from seed, planted by my own hand. The left hand, if I remember correctly.

I charged my camera up to take a picture because all the petals might have been blown off by the next day. Took the picture. Safe and sound in my camera for botanical science to wonder over. The extra petals were still there on Sunday. But they have gone today. Well, they haven't gone, they've just been scattered around the other plants in the meadow. The four normal petals are still on the plant.

Does this poppy plant have special powers? Did it come from another world? Can it talk? There must be something special about it because never in the history of the world has such a poppy been seen. Not by me, at least, and I've seen quite a few.

I might post the picture here if the newspapers and television companies will allow me to after I offer them the scoop.

[Gliondrach]

My Christmas cactus is in flower. Two flowers, another one nearly open and a fourth one in bud. I noticed three or four buds a couple of weeks ago.

[Gliondrach]

Be careful in the garden.

Scientist Suggests Carnivorous Petunias, Potatoes Among Us

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

By Charles Q. Choi

Petunias and potatoes may actually be carnivorous plants, scientists now suggest.
Indeed, carnivorous behavior may be far more widespread in plants than commonly thought — if we take a closer look, botanists said.

At least six different kinds of killer plants have been recognized since the time of Darwin, such as Venus flytraps, which snares insects between its jaw-like leaves, and pitcher plants, which capture victims in slippery pits. These plants apparently target animals to supplement their growth in harsh, nutrient-poor habitats.

Many other plants, some quite common, have also been suggested as potential carnivores over the years that have failed to gain wide acceptance as such thus far. Petunias and potatoes, for instance, have sticky hairs that trap insects, and several species of campion flowers have the common name catchfly for the same reason.

"We may be surrounded by many more murderous plants than we think," said botanist Mark Chase, Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in England.

Cryptic carnovores

Chase and his colleagues reviewed all the research so far on carnivorous plants. A number of plants might actually be carnivorous, they noted, but merely go about their murderous business in a subtler manner than their more conspicuous cousins.

For instance, the cross-leaved heath (Erica tetralix) is not typically considered a carnivorous plant, but this pink flower possesses sticky, adhesive glands and dwells in poor soils. Also, while carnivorous seeds might be a strange concept, those of the shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) possesses a sticky layer with chemicals that can attract, kill and digest victims.

"Although a man-eating tree is fictional, many commonly grown plants may turn out to be cryptic carnivores, at least by absorbing through their roots the breakdown products of the animals that they ensnare," Chase said.

The reason why most of these plants are not generally thought of as carnivores is because they have not been found capable of digesting what they entrap as more obvious carnivorous plants do. Still, because roots can readily absorb nutrients released from decaying corpses, nearly all plants are capable of carnivory, Chase and his colleagues assert.

"In almost every habitat, the nitrogen and phosphorus that animal bodies can provide are limiting factors for growth, and even a minimal amount of carnivory can reap some benefit," Chase told LiveScience.

Sophisticated plants

Although Chase feels there is more than just circumstantial evidence that demonstrates how widespread carnivorous plants are, to prove the point, researchers can dose insects with mildly radioactive nutrients. Scientists can then track such molecules to see if the plants are really absorbing them, which would show they are benefiting from killing prey.

"What plants are doing is much more sophisticated than we ever imagined," Chase said. "Although animals are eating plants, plants are also eating animals. It's not just a one-way street."

The scientists detailed their analysis December 4 in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

foxnews.com/story/0,2933,579736,00.html?test=faces

[Bowwowmeow]

I have been sprouting horse chestnuts. Another name for the fruits of the California Buckeye, which is a very pretty native tree. I found one along the roadside full of fruits a few months ago, so I collected half a dozen, and looked up how to sprout them online. In one of my garden books it said they are easy to sprout, but gave no directions, so I found some online.

I have one already planted in a pot, and it is six inches high. The second one is still in its sprouting bowl, but it needs to be planted soon. I want a few of these trees on my property, since there are a few next door, but none on my side of the fence. They look beautiful in winter with no leaves, and they also bloom with large pendulous blossoms in spring that smell really good.

As soon as I plant number 2, I'll put in another horse chestnut for sprouting. Now that they have dried out a bit, they do resemble edible chestnuts, but these are toxic and inedible.

[Gliondrach]

Our horse chestnuts were introduced but are now seen all over the place. We have the Aesulus hippocastanum type. The conker tree. I enjoyed playing conkers. I always wanted to get a six-er but I don't think I ever managed it.

[Bowwowmeow]

Oh we are overrun with eucalyptus. Sometimes when I see photos of Australia I think they are photos of the Bay Area. There was a movement afoot many years ago to chop them all down in the Berkeley hills and allow native species to reforest. I wonder what it looks like now.

[Gliondrach]

Are there any koalas on them?

[Bowwowmeow]

No, only at the zoo. Plenty of escaped pet parrots though, There is a stand of these trees near the Burlingame train station that was well known as a feral parrot haven. I wonder if they are still there. I haven't been there in ages.

[Gliondrach]

I remember reading something about wild parrots and the campaign to save them. Or am I thinking about the parakeets in London Town? No, it was in California.

[Gliondrach]

I'd like to try this on my balcony.

Square Foot Gardening.

This seems like a great idea. In the video on the site he says that, compared to normal gardening, you can grow crops with 50% of the costs, 20% of the space, 10% of the water, 5% of the seeds, and 2% of the work.

ht-tp://ww-w.squarefootgardening.com/

[nagev]

I'm excited about my garden this year, growing a variety of food stuffs. I'm also doing some container gardening, but mostly for strawberries and some herbs.

I'm trying some ginger too and it's already about 3 inches tall.

I like the idea of square foot gardening too, so I'm going to try to do some of that in our regular garden. I'll see how it works out.

[Gliondrach]

Some of the reviewers of the book, on Amazon, say that it can be expensive if you buy the things the author says you need - compost, I think. Others say it's not expensive.

Do you make compost from kitchen waste? I'm thinking about making a compost bin on my balcony - if it doesn't attract flies, or gives off smells. My neighbours might complain. They already complain a lot about my dawn yodelling practice.

[nagev]

Some of the reviewers of the book, on Amazon, say that it can be expensive if you buy the things the author says you need - compost, I think. Others say it's not expensive.

Yeah, I like the idea of container gardening, however it seems like there is a lot of input costs, compared to just growing in the dirt. I suppose it all depends on what can be scrounged or done yourself. :)



Do you make compost from kitchen waste? I'm thinking about making a compost bin on my balcony - if it doesn't attract flies, or gives off smells. My neighbours might complain. They already complain a lot about my dawn yodelling practice.

I do make compost from kitchen waste. What is your idea to do it in on the balcony? A pre-made compost bin or more of a do-it-yourself method?

[Gliondrach]

Probably some home-made contraption. But there are quite a few things I want to make this year as well, including a wood gas stove and a solar cooker.

[nagev]

Probably some home-made contraption. But there are quite a few things I want to make this year as well, including a wood gas stove and a solar cooker.

Wood gas stove? What's that? A combo type stove?

[Gliondrach]

Some info about them in post 70 of the following thread:
http://www.thesaucyvegan.com/showthread.php?p=69809&highlight=stove#post69809

And post 25 of this thread:
http://www.thesaucyvegan.com/showthread.php?p=69806&highlight=stove#post69806

I already have an empty tin that had beans in it. I have some aluminium sheeting. I just need one or two other things.
I already have an empty tin that had beans in it. I have some aluminium sheeting. I just need one or two other things.

Very Funny, making the writing invisible. I hope I have spelled this correctly as I can't see what I am writing.

[nagev]

Interesting.

[Bowwowmeow]

Very Funny, making the writing invisible. I hope I have spelled this correctly as I can't see what I am writing.
You can always pick another skin if you don't like the default. :p

[Gliondrach]

I like the default. I like to dress in dark or dull colours and like the forum dressed that way too.

[nagev]

So Gliondrach, will you be container gardening this year?

[Gliondrach]

There are some seedlings coming up from last year - wild and a couple of cultivated flower species. Most of them are probablyt forget-me-nots. And some marigolds. I have run out of wildflower seeds except red campions and long-headed poppies. I planted them a few days ago. The red campions never come up - not since the first time I planted them many years ago. I usually have white campions growing - these were first planted about the same time - about 20 years ago.

Last year a vetch-type plant came up but didn't flower. It is back this year and will probably flower if it's a perennial.

I might grow some food. Or I might not.

[nagev]

Here's a picture of the ginger I have growing in two separate pots. They have enough room now, but as soon as the weather gets a bit better, I'm potting them into a slightly larger pot and start moving them outside.

I'm excited, I like ginger. :)

My eventual goal is to grow almost all the food I consume. I suppose it would have been a better idea to move to a slightly warmer climate (at least a bit longer growing season) and I've thought of that, but it is what it is.

[Gliondrach]

Do you give them extra heat?

[nagev]

Yes. They're actually sitting on a gas stove (that is what is heating our house now). They were on tray in front of it, but weren't getting enough heat, so I put them on top. It doesn't seem to cook them, but the heat, warms up the clay pots and brings the temperature of the soil inside up to a nice temperature.

[nagev]

I'm not sure what the policy here is about linking to other sites... I saw this page on gardening in a small space (like vertical gardening) and I thought it had some creative ideas. I've seen some of the gutter growing ideas:

http://www.thetinylife.com/gardening-small-space/

[Bowwowmeow]

We don't really have a policy about links to other sites. We've been concerned in the past that having more outgoing links than incoming was bad for our ranking, but I'm beyond worrying about that any more.

We do have anonymous outbound links though, in case someone links to something questionable, and we don't want them following it back and coming here to cause trouble.

[Bowwowmeow]

I used to grow ginger as house plants. :)

[nagev]

I used to grow ginger as house plants. :)

Interesting. Do you have any advice? I've read up on it a bit, but it's always nice to hear from someone who has experience.

Did you consume the ginger that grew?

Mine are already about 3 times the size in the picture.

[Gliondrach]

For the past week or so the meadow on my balcony has had some flowers. The first to flower were the Welsh poppies. Then the wild forget-me-nots. And then the red corn poppies. The pea or vetch plant is sending tendrils all over the place, grabbing on to anything it reaches. I keep training it to stay within its pot, though. I also have some nice tall stems of grass. Just the local type. Not sure what it is. It might be Smooth meadow-grass - Poa pratensis, or it might not be. It is in flower. Before it was in flower, the grain heads were close together. Now, they are spread out more.

I'll have to buy a book on native grasses. I'll be going on a wild flower guided walk soon. I'll ask the guide what the grass is.

[Gliondrach]

My first wildflower seeds came from two packets of seeds that were bought with a voucher in the Daily Mail in 1988. They came from Chambers' Seeds, in Kettering, Northamptonshire.

They don't seem to have a website! According to their 1988 catalogue, they have various mixtures of seeds. I am thinking of getting a packet from their Cricklade Meadow mixture. They say that the meadow is 'One of the country's largest and most ancient meadows. Cricklade Meadow has over 200 species of wild flowers and grasses. It's documented history goes back over 800 years, during which time it has not been ploughed, seeded or treated with artificial fertilisers, herbicides or pesticides.'

Then it lists the flowers and grasses.

Cricklade is in Wiltshire. They also have a mixture from Yarnton Meadow in Oxfordshire. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book. When I say it was mentioned in the Domesday Book, I don't mean the seed mixture they sell. They haven't been in business that long.

[Gliondrach]

I've collected quite a few seeds from my balcony meadow. Corn poppies, Welsh poppies and forget-me-nots. I also collected a few from the one or two long-headed poppies but put the first lot in with the corn poppies. If anyone wants a few seeds just let me know. The Welsh poppies are perennial and will seed all over the place.

I'm still waiting for the vetch to flower. And one corn marigold and one corn chamomile. It's getting late for them.

[nagev]

Well our garden has been producing a lot. About a week ago I started seeing lady bugs coming back (I'm not sure if I ever posted some of the pictures of the hordes of ladybugs I had here last year). Now they're back in mass and are all over the garden here. We had some aphids on some of the plants and now their numbers seem to be going down. More and more ladybugs though.

My one regret was putting a cloche on a habanero plant some time ago. At night it was getting down around 40 degrees (Fahrenheit) and I read that it likes 60 to 80 degrees (Fahrenheit), so I thought a cloche at night would help it out a bit (it lost all it's first flowers). Anyways, I forgot it one day and it was up around 90 degrees that day. Sadly it looked like I killed the plant, but it has a lot of new growth. :) I've been thinking about potting it and bringing it in over winter since I read that habaneros are perennials and not just annuals, but that in my climate people treat them as annuals.

I'm going to make something to help out my kumquat tree this winter (light and maybe something to keep it a bit warmer) so I figure maybe I should do both. We'll see.

[Bowwowmeow]

I'm looking forward to some food gardening next Spring. Haven't done anything here yet. Just waiting for the grapes to ripen.

[nagev]

I have some grapes here. Darn things, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with them though. Last year there was a lot of growth, but we only got 5 grapes. It was sad. This year there has been a lot of growth but no flowers or berries yet.

[Bowwowmeow]

How old are your vines? They don't really get productive for several years. They should have bloomed in spring.

Mine are very old. I don't know what to do with them either, but they produce lots of grapes. I will have to study pruning them and so forth. I need to build a better arbor for the ones outside the windows, but I am waiting til the leaves drop and I can see the vines.

[Bowwowmeow]

Oh and I think you have to be careful what you prune too. You could inadvertently prune off the shoots that make the current season's fruit. I know that's how it is with cane fruits, but I am not as familiar with grapes yet. Cane fruits like blackberries always fruit on second year growth.

[nagev]

How old are your vines? They don't really get productive for several years. They should have bloomed in spring.

I do not know how old they are. They were here at the house when we purchased it. It has to be older than a few years, since the main stock is about 2 inches in diameter. Last year it budded and grew from that main stock, but it didn't do that this year. I think the main stock died. It has sent out a new shoots from the rootstock and is growing now. I suppose there will be no grapes this year. :(

Mine are very old. I don't know what to do with them either, but they produce lots of grapes. I will have to study pruning them and so forth. I need to build a better arbor for the ones outside the windows, but I am waiting til the leaves drop and I can see the vines.

Well, at least you'll have a lot of grapes for awhile. :) Do you know what kind of grapes they are?

[nagev]

Yeah, I knew that about blackberries, I'm not really familiar with grapes at all. Other than what I buy and eat from the store. :)

[Bowwowmeow]

No I don't know what variety they are. Just red seeded grapes. Very good ones. It's interesting that the birds don't eat the whole berry, they just pierce them and suck out the juice, leaving the burst berries to dry out on the vine.

[nagev]

Does anyone have any experience with growing habaneros indoors? I'm thinking about digging up mine outside and putting it into a pot to bring indoors. I know I may have to get a light for it and make sure it's warm enough (I've read it prefers temperatures above 60 F), but I was just looking for any other experience.

[Bowwowmeow]

No, I have never had to take anything inside to grow. I have been given those ornamental pepper plants as gifts at Christmas time though. I'd say you could probably keep a habanero growing inside for about a month if it got enough light and humidity. That's how long those gift plants usually lasted.

Are they already growing in containers? Digging up mature plants from the garden soil itself would probably shock the plants too much. Maybe cloches might work better.

[nagev]

No, I have never had to take anything inside to grow. I have been given those ornamental pepper plants as gifts at Christmas time though. I'd say you could probably keep a habanero growing inside for about a month if it got enough light and humidity. That's how long those gift plants usually lasted.

Yeah, your climate is a bit warmer than here. :p

Although I remember a picture from you about snow at your new place, is that correct?

Are they already growing in containers? Digging up mature plants from the garden soil itself would probably shock the plants too much. Maybe cloches might work better.

Oh, that's a good point about the shock. Unfortunately our winter lasts a number of months and I'm pretty sure it won't make it over winter (even with a cloche). It's really tiny, because I forgot a cloche on it earlier this year and it killed off the top of the plant. :(

I guess I'll just try it and see. :)

[Gliondrach]

My Christmas cactus has had flower buds on it for over a week. They will open soon. This year I think it's going to be a Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night cactus. It has flowered at Christmas quite often and at least once at Easter.

[Gliondrach]

I saw on a gardener's programme on telly that all members of the brassica family can be harvested as mini greens - when their first true leaves have grown. I am going to plant some in 3 small containers. If I plant them about 5 days apart and continue to plant new ones, I should have a good supply of fresh greens.

More info about indoor food growing in post 249 in the following thread:
http://www.thesaucyvegan.com/showthread.php?p=131899#post131899

[nagev]

What kind of brassicas?

[Gliondrach]

She just said all of them. Not sure about Brussels' sprouts. But I imagine cabbages, cauliflowers and broccoli - the ones whose leaves we eat.

I went to town yesterday to buy some soil but couldn't find any - except some I walked on here and there.

[nagev]

Oh, I meant, what kinds of brassicas will you plant? :)

[Gliondrach]

I have some broccoli seeds. But I've had them for about 2 years. If they don't grow I'll buy some more. But I need soil first.

[Gliondrach]

My Christmas cactus has had flower buds on it for over a week. They will open soon. This year I think it's going to be a Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night cactus. It has flowered at Christmas quite often and at least once at Easter.

The first flower opened on the 10th of November. So, it is an Armistice day cactus this year. Well, the day before Armistice Day cactus. Lots still to open. It fell on the floor yesterday and some of the leaves with buds broke off. But it looks all right now after the shock. It was caused by the asparagus fern grabbing hold of me. I keep them on the telly. When I go behind the telly to unplug it, the asparagus fern - which has lots of thorns - often catches on my clothes. It did so last night. It was dark so I didn't notice what had happened until I felt a tug and then heard a crash.

[Gliondrach]

The Christmas cactus is still in flower!

[nagev]

The Christmas cactus is still in flower!

Cool! Any pictures?

I don't know if anyone remembers me asking about bringing a habanero inside for winter, but I did and it's growing quite a bit. It's currently flowering, so we'll see if I actually get any habaneros off of it before this summer. :)

[Gliondrach]

Cool! Any pictures?

I don't know if anyone remembers me asking about bringing a habanero inside for winter, but I did and it's growing quite a bit. It's currently flowering, so we'll see if I actually get any habaneros off of it before this summer. :)

My camera's full up and I need to put the pictures somewhere to make room. I've never put them on this computer before but I'll have a try tomorrow.

What about pictures of the habanero?

[Bowwowmeow]

I'm already catching spring fever.

That is all.

[nagev]

My camera's full up and I need to put the pictures somewhere to make room. I've never put them on this computer before but I'll have a try tomorrow.

What about pictures of the habanero?

When my batteries charge I'll try to take a picture. :)

[KRITER]

I was walking past my garden yesterday going to the mail box.I cant hardly wait to get into it.Its in rite bad shape.A big branch done fell across one of my beds.Looks like some critters been moving my compost around.I started a new fench to make the garden biger rite befor my first shoulder surgery back in September.I just want get my hands in that dirt.

[Bowwowmeow]

I need to get started on trimming the grasses and weeds, and clearing the area under the grape arbor. I need to build a new trellis for it, and prune the vines.

[KRITER]

I bilt what I reckon you call a arbor or a arborium.I not sure.I bilt a deck then put up 4x4s on the corners and run some field fence up the front,back and over the top.The grapes gro over every year.Its great place to sit or lay down in the shade of the grapes.I sleep under it some times during the summer.

[Bowwowmeow]

Oh that sounds nice! The grape vines here are very old. I've no idea how long ago they were planted. They cover a very large area right outside the dining room and living room windows, and yield lots of really nice red grapes in the autumn.

The structure that supports them definitely needs replacing pretty soon though.

[KRITER]

I have grapes and blue berrys down in the garden.Im wanting to build somthing them too.

[nagev]

Uncovering the kale and carrots today. The carrots have been really good over winter, tasty and surviving. I haven't tried the kale, but there's still a bit that survived the winter. I'm hoping to have an early crop of it this year.

Inside I have a heat pad and grow light for sprouts. We already have parsley started but I'd like to get some other greens going, like spinach, kale, chard, maybe lettuce.

[Gliondrach]

This list probably only applies to organic foods.

FOODS WITH THE HIGHEST
OVERALL ANTIOXIDANT
CAPACITY PER SERVING

• Blueberries
• Cranberries
• Blackberries
• Raspberries
• Strawberries
• Red grapes
• Apples
• Plums
• Potatoes
• Red grapes
• Sweet cherries
• Kidney beans
• Pinto beans
• Prunes
• Asparagus
• Grapefruit
• Peaches
• Yellow pepper
• Green grapes
• Blackeye peas
• Cooked tomatoes
• Cooked artichoke
• Red Cabbage
• Red-leaf lettuce
• Broccoli raab
• Beets

ht--tp://w--ww.organic-center.org/reportfiles/AntioxFinal.pdf

[Gliondrach]

I read something interesting in the local Liberal Democrat's newsletter which is pushed through the door every now and again. I usually throw it away without looking at it but I glanced through the pages this time. Next year some new allotments will open less than a mile from my house. That set me off looking at allotment info on the internet. I discovered some existing allotments about the same distance but in another direction. I have passed them many times without knowing they were there. In fact, I pass near them when I go shopping for fruit and veg. I will send an e-mail to the secretary.

A typical allotment in Newcastle is 250 square yards and costs £30 a year to rent.

To get to these allotments, I will just need to go to the top of my street and walk along a busy road for about three-quarters of a mile over a road bridge. I will feel a bit self-conscious strolling along with a garden fork or spade over my shoulder. So I think I will go another way. I will go under the bridge. There is a steep hill down into the valley and back up the other side but it will get me warmed up for gardening.

All the local allotments are near busy roads and will be polluted from all the traffic. But the crops will still be less poisoned than conventional crops sprayed with the usual farming poisons.

I hope there's not a waiting list.

[Gliondrach]

Damn! I sent an e-mail but it wasn't delivered. She must have given up the e-mail account. I'll have to get in touch with the council's allotment officer.

[Gliondrach]

I've found out where those allotments are. They appear on goggle maps. I've seen some photographs as well. The soil seems to have lots of clay in it. It doesn't look good. And there are only 6 or 7 plots.

I think I'll try to get on another one that is a bit further away. It is surrounded by trees and not so close to main roads. And it leads into Jesmond Dene, which is a nice oasis of greenery near the centre of the city.

[Gliondrach]

I contacted the secretary of the allotments that are a bit further away than the allotments that are closer. There are no vacant plots. She said the last vacant one was last year and that was snapped up by someone who had been on the waiting list since 1999. There are still about 30 people on the waiting list. And there are only 7 plots. I did say I would be willing to take half a plot if anyone wants to share.

I am thinking of putting cards in newsagents' windows to ask if anyone would let me use their garden. I'll say I'll do all the work and share the produce with them.

I will also put my name down for one of the plots on the new allotments that will be ready next year. But they are probably all spoken for.

I am going to grow some food at home. I could put a couple of containers in the sitting room and probably two or three bigger ones on the balcony. I will grow cabbages, spinach and kale. I'll pick them before they grow to full size. I'll be able to pick some leaves and let the plant keep on growing. Carrots would be nice but they would need deeper containers. I might grow some potatoes in a growbag or in a pot. Or I might not.

There should be more allotments and they should be smaller. Some are huge. And people who have gardens shouldn't be allowed to have them when there are waiting lists. We need a bit more of the Dig For Victory spirit.

[Bowwowmeow]

Wow, sitting here on an acre of land, that makes me sad to read that. I missed gardening terribly while I was on my houseboat. I had my planters, but it is not the same thing at all.

Clay is a better soil to amend than sand. You can work lots of gypsum into it to improve its texture without changing the soil pH. It took me a few years to create truly beautiful soil at my old house, but it was so satisfying to know I had put my hands to the soil and made it better.

I used plenty of compost too. Lots of organic matter. Each year I double dug my bed and put all the spring prunings down in the bottom, just freshly cut, and covered them up again, and each year I redug I found them all thoroughly decomposed. This, and adding other stuff like my own compost, grass clippings scavenged from condo dumpsters, and occasionally purchasing amendments from the garden supply center, built up the soil each year til I had to build raised beds to contain the soil. I had started off with about eight inches of topsoil before I hit the compacted layer of subsoil caused by the construction of the house, and ended up with two feet. So I wouldn't give up on that allotment with the clay soil if I were you Gliondrach.

[Gliondrach]

I'm going to walk past those allotments on Thursday to see if anyone's about. But that is only a small site as well. Unlikely to be any vacancies.

When I throw the outer cabbage leaves or thick stalks away I always think what good compost material I am wasting.

I read that an allotment site 2 or 3 miles from here might have vacancies but that is too far away. I would waste too much time walking there and back.

[Gliondrach]

I didn't walk past the allotments. Didn't have time. But I saw this on the internet. This bloke has 3 allotments. They're in a place called West Allotment (that's the name of the former village) about 8 or 9 miles from here. He certainly has a lot of land.

In the middle of a sterile business park filled with automobile showrooms in a suburb of Newcastle Upon Tyne, I stumbled upon a huge garden allotment. I wandered down the central path and saw the each of the beds was filled with sprightly vegetables.

The folks in the north of England are very friendly and before long I found myself in the midst of a lively convesrsation with Roy McCann, who has been growing pounds and pounds of veggies in his three allotments over the past twenty years.

“I grow much more than my family can eat,” he told me, “so I end up giving a lot of food away to friends.”

“Then why do you have three plots?” I asked.

“Because I just love growing things,” said Roy.


ht--tp://w--ww.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://lornasassatlarge.files.wordpress.com/

5jgquZX7LiE

[KRITER]

Got into my garden yesterday after therapee.Put up ateepee for my beans and piece of field fence foe the cukes to climb.Im going plant lettuce under the beans.Theyll keep the lettuce shaded.Planted canalope.Still got a few more them to plant.Im not sure Id kno wut to do without a garden.Had one all my life.Im sorry you having garden troubles Gliondrach.

[Gliondrach]

I think I'll have to put containers on my balcony and on my windowsill. There are some good videos on yutube which show how much people can grow things on a balcony.

[KRITER]

Thats a good idea.I planted 4 spruce trees and a dogwood I got free at the Earth Day get together Saturday.Planted a blue berry bush and some canalope.Im sloly geting my garden going.I think Ill put some plants in containers too.

[Bowwowmeow]

Pruned the grape arbor. Now I have to clear the weeds under it, and tie up loose shoots. It's starting to leaf out.

[KRITER]

Mines done started leafing out too.But I need to get a diferent kind.All I have is concords.

[Gliondrach]

The first two Welsh poppies are open on my balcony. I don't know when they opened because I hadn't looked out there for a couple of days.

[Gliondrach]

My Christmas cactus, which flowered for ages a few months ago, still has one of the dried up flowers on it. But it also has a new flower that opened a couple of days ago. There don't appear to be any more buds.

[nagev]

Well, I got three kinds of potatoes in the ground (Red Norland, Desiree, and some kind of yellow maybe Yukon). I've been eating kale and Chard from plants of last year (I mulched them and they're back to live with lots of greens). Peas, carrots, beets, salad greens, and garlic are coming in nicely.

Planted more kale, chard, as well as some other brassicas (kohlrabi, some cabbages, etc).

I was hoping to find seed locally for scorzonera and salsify, because I've read that these are some underappreciated vegetables, but sadly I didn't this year. I'm hoping to find seed by this fall for next year though. Has anyone grown or eaten those two?

[Gliondrach]

Are you going to send away for the seeds you couldn't buy locally?

[nagev]

Are you going to send away for the seeds you couldn't buy locally?

Probably. I was hoping for some local ones, but I think I'll see what I can get online.

[Bowwowmeow]

No I've heard of them, but never tried to grow any.

I need to get outside once the rain stops and collect my miner's lettuce seeds. I want to try to cultivate it. Right now it grows here and there, and has to compete with lots of much more vigorous weeds, and I would prefer to grow more miner's lettuce and fewer inedible weeds.

[nagev]

That's a great idea. Cultivate the edibles. :)

[KRITER]

My okra is up and all the beans I planted.Yeehaa
I got me another bowl of strawberrys out the garden too.My blueberry bush is full of little green berrys.Im fixing to have a mess of them.Looks like I mite have pears and apples this year too

[Gliondrach]

I like okra.

And you've just given me an idea for the 'Vegan names of people or places' thread. :thumbsup:

[KRITER]

Granma use to cut okra in small pieces,get the peices all batered up,sesoned and deep fry.Its beter then popcorn.But dont reckon its very healthy.

[Gliondrach]

I've only had it in Indian food.

[KRITER]

I boil it and mix it with other vegys.Corn and okra or make a kind of gumbo.Lots of folks dont like okra cuz its slimy.Boiling takes some of that away.Ill eat it cooked anykind of way with tobasco sauce.But hot foods not reely good rite now it geting close to 100 degrees here.I dont have air conditioning.But its good in the Fall and Winter.

[Gliondrach]

My Christmas cactus has another flower on it. I noticed it 2 or 3 days ago.

[nagev]

Pictures?

[Gliondrach]

My camera is still full. I will empty my camera today if I don't forget to remember. The flower should last for a day or two. The other one - from a few weeks ago - is withered but still hanging on.

[KRITER]

My blue berry bush is full of green berrys fixing to turn blue.Im starting to get a few more strawberrys.
Im going to have Asian pears befor long too.Lots of green tomatos on my plants and got green cayanne peppers too.Theyll go good with the okra.Ill be pulling alot of weeds this weekend.Dont kno if Iv said this yet.I hav a black snake living in the garden in a holloed log I use as a border.Its rite cool.

[Gliondrach]

You've mentioned some snakes before. Do you put the weeds on a compost heap?

[KRITER]

Yeah,weeds go in the compost

[Gliondrach]

Pictures?

The two Christmas cactus flowers are open. I will photograph them as soon as my camera is charged up. I haven't used it since early last year. It will take a few hours for the battery to charge. We never had this trouble with Box Brownie cameras.

[Gliondrach]

Here is a picture of one of the Christmas cactus flowers taken about 45 minutes ago. The plant pot kept falling over as the plant is lopsided. I have propped it against the side of a chair. I put the Radio Times behind it, open to today's page, to prove it is today, but the page doesn't show very clearly.

[KRITER]

That looks rite good.Iv had one for years and its always looked sik and dont gro.Its not ded,all the way anyway.Reckon I havnt figured out how to treet it.

[Gliondrach]

I only give the cactus water when the soil is very dry. I usually add a few drops of liquid feed but haven't had any for over a year. I must buy some more.

[nagev]

Very nice. :)

[KRITER]

All this rain we geting is giving my beans a atitude.I beleev they fixing to take over the garden.Im just worried what they got in mind after that.

[KRITER]

Im geting a mess of beans and okra out the garden.I got two big ol zucinis and 2 lemon tomatos and some eggplant.I reely like eggplant.My blueberrys are taking a long time to turn blue.I feel like somthing is sloing them down.I reckon the garden is liking these hot days.

[Gliondrach]

I've had a wild plant that's obviously a member of the vetch/pea family growing on my balcony for the past two years. It now has flowers on it for the first time. They are purple. I'll have a good look at it tomorrow but I think it might be a tufted vetch.

I brought home what I think is some sort of sorrel today. There are some of them growing in cracks in the paving stones near the entrance to my building. They will probably get trodden on. I will also have a proper look at that tomorrow.

And some bittersweet plants have been growing in a raised bed near my house. One had green fruits on it last week but they have gone now. I was waiting until they ripened then I would have planted the seeds on my balcony. I like the flowers.

[KRITER]

Got me collards and cabbage doing prity good.My tomatos is plum played out but the okra is still hanging on.Got lots of jalapenos.I like puting them in succotash and anykind of beans.

[Gliondrach]

This looks like a good gardening book. It helps you to make the soil healthy:

Teaming With Microbes: A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web.

By Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis.

Smart gardeners know that soil is anything but an inert substance. Healthy soil is teeming with life not just earthworms and insects, but a staggering multitude of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. When we use chemical fertilizers, we injure the microbial life that sustains healthy plants, and thus become increasingly dependent on an arsenal of artificial, often toxic, substances. But there is an alternative to this vicious cycle. We can garden in a way that strengthens the soil food web the complex world of soil-dwelling organisms whose interactions create a nurturing environment for plants. "Teaming with Microbes" extols the benefits of cultivating the soil food web. First, it clearly explains the activities and organisms that make up the web. Next, it explains how gardeners can cultivate the life of the soil through the use of compost, mulches, and compost tea. The revised edition updates the original text and includes two completely new chapters on mycorrhizae (beneficial associations fungi form with green-leaved plants) and archaea (single-celled organisms once thought to be allied to bacteria). With Jeff Lowenfels' help, everyone from devotees of organic gardening techniques to weekend gardeners who simply want to grow healthy, vigorous plants without resorting to chemicals can create rich, nurturing, living soil.

And, as the review over at govenic.net/ says:

Did you know that one teaspoon of good garden soil (about as much as can be balanced on your pinky finger) contains one thousand million bacteria of between 20,000 and 30,000 species, several yards of fungal hyphae, several thousand protozoa and a few dozen nematodes? If this is news to you as it was to me, you will never look at soil the same way again. All these soil organisms are quite active and need to eat something containing carbon for the energy to power their metabolisms. This carbon may come from organic plant material or the waste or bodies of other organisms. Most soil organisms eat other organisms, and many different ones at that. When this food chain is drawn, it forms more of a food web.

'Interestingly, this chaotic feeding frenzy is controlled by plants in the area, for the benefit of themselves. Much of the energy produced by plants through photosynthesis is used to make chemicals that are exuded from their roots in the forms of carbohydrates and proteins. The exudates attract specific bacteria and fungi, which consume them. These bacteria and fungi attract and are eaten by larger microorganisms, specifically protozoa and nematodes. The wastes of these larger microbes are then absorbed by plant roots as nutrients.

[Gliondrach]

Great idea but it would be better to plant things away from areas with lots of traffic.


Carrots in the car park. Radishes on the roundabout. The deliciously eccentric story of the town growing ALL its own veg

By Vincent Graff
10th December, 2011

Admittedly, it sounds like the most foolhardy of criminal capers, and one of the cheekiest, too.

Outside the police station in the small Victorian mill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, there are three large raised flower beds.

If you’d visited a few months ago, you’d have found them overflowing with curly kale, carrot plants, lettuces, spring onions — all manner of vegetables and salad leaves.

Today the beds are bare. Why? Because people have been wandering up to the police station forecourt in broad daylight and digging up the vegetables. And what are the cops doing about this brazen theft from right under their noses? Nothing.

Well, that’s not quite correct.
‘I watch ’em on camera as they come up and pick them,’ says desk officer Janet Scott, with a huge grin. It’s the smile that explains everything.

For the vegetable-swipers are not thieves. The police station carrots — and thousands of vegetables in 70 large beds around the town — are there for the taking. Locals are encouraged to help themselves. A few tomatoes here, a handful of broccoli there. If they’re in season, they’re yours. Free.

So there are (or were) raspberries, apricots and apples on the canal towpath; blackcurrants, redcurrants and strawberries beside the doctor’s surgery; beans and peas outside the college; cherries in the supermarket car park; and mint, rosemary, thyme and fennel by the health centre.

The vegetable plots are the most visible sign of an amazing plan: to make Todmorden the first town in the country that is self-sufficient in food.

‘And we want to do it by 2018,’ says Mary Clear, 56, a grandmother of ten and co-founder of Incredible Edible, as the scheme is called.

‘It’s a very ambitious aim. But if you don’t aim high, you might as well stay in bed, mightn’t you?’

So what’s to stop me turning up with a huge carrier bag and grabbing all the rosemary in the town?

‘Nothing,’ says Mary.

What’s to stop me nabbing all the apples?
‘Nothing.’

All your raspberries?

‘Nothing.’

It just doesn’t happen like that, she says. ‘We trust people. We truly believe — we are witness to it — that people are decent.’

When she sees the Big Issue seller gathering fruit for his lunch, she feels only pleasure. What does it matter, argues Mary, if once in a while she turns up with her margarine tub to find that all the strawberries are gone?

‘This is a revolution,’ she says. ‘But we are gentle revolutionaries. Everything we do is underpinned by kindness.’

The idea came about after she and co-founder Pam Warhurst, the former owner of the town’s Bear Cafe, began fretting about the state of the world and wondered what they could do.

They reasoned that all they could do is start locally, so they got a group of people, mostly women, together in the cafe.

‘Wars come about by men having drinks in bars, good things come about when women drink coffee together,’ says Mary.

‘Our thinking was: there’s so much blame in the world — blame local government, blame politicians, blame bankers, blame technology — we thought, let’s just do something positive instead.’

We’re standing by a car park in the town centre. Mary points to a housing estate up the hill. Her face lights up.

‘The children walk past here on the way to school. We’ve filled the flower beds with fennel and they’ve all been taught that if you bite fennel, it tastes like a liquorice gobstopper. When I see the children popping little bits of herb into their mouths, I just think it’s brilliant.’

She takes me over to the front garden of her own house, a few yards away.

Three years ago, when Incredible Edible was launched, she did a very unusual thing: she lowered her front wall, in order to encourage passers-by to walk into her garden and help themselves to whatever vegetables took their fancy.

There were signs asking people to take something but it took six months for folk to ‘get it’, she says.

They get it now. Obviously a few town-centre vegetable plants — even thousands of them — are not going to feed a community of 15,000 by themselves.

But the police station potatoes act as a recruiting sergeant — to encourage residents to grow their own food at home.
Today, hundreds of townspeople who began by helping themselves to the communal veg are now well on the way to self-sufficiency.

But out on the street, what gets planted where? There’s kindness even in that.

‘The ticket man at the railway station, who was very much loved, was unwell. Before he died, we asked him: “What’s your favourite vegetable, Reg?” It was broccoli. So we planted memorial beds with broccoli at the station. One stop up the line, at Hebden Bridge, they loved Reg, too — and they’ve also planted broccoli in his memory.’
Not that all the plots are — how does one put this delicately? — ‘official’.

Take the herb bushes by the canal. Owners British Waterways had no idea locals had been sowing plants there until an official inspected the area ahead of a visit by the Prince of Wales last year (Charles is a huge Incredible Edible fan).

Estelle Brown, a 67-year-old former interior designer who tended the plot, received an email from British Waterways.

‘I was a bit worried to open it,’ she says. ‘But it said: “How do you build a raised bed? Because my boss wants one outside his office window.”’

Incredible Edible is also about much more than plots of veg. It’s about educating people about food, and stimulating the local economy.

There are lessons in pickling and preserving fruits, courses on bread-making, and the local college is to offer a BTEC in horticulture. The thinking is that young people who have grown up among the street veg may make a career in food.

Crucially, the scheme is also about helping local businesses. The Bear, a wonderful shop and cafe with a magnificent original Victorian frontage, sources all its ingredients from farmers within a 30-mile radius.

There’s a brilliant daily market. People here can eat well on local produce, and thousands now do.

Meanwhile, the local school was recently awarded a £500,000 Lottery grant to set up a fish farm in order to provide food for the locals and to teach useful skills to young people. (:mad:)

Jenny Coleman, 62, who retired here from London, explains: ‘We need something for our young people to do. If you’re an 18-year-old, there’s got to be a good answer to the question: why would I want to stay in Todmorden?’

The day I visit, the town is battered by a bitterly-cold rain storm. Yet the place radiates warmth. People speak to each other in the street, wave as neighbours drive past, smile.

If the phrase hadn’t been hijacked, the words ‘we’re all in this together’ would spring to mind.

So what sort of place is Todmorden (known locally, without exception, as ‘Tod’)? If you’re assuming it’s largely peopled by middle-class grandmothers, think again. Nor is this place a mecca for the gin-and-Jag golf club set.

Set in a Pennine valley — once, the road through the town served as the border between Yorkshire and Lancashire — it is a vibrant mix of age, class and ethnicity.

A third of households do not own a car; a fifth do not have central heating.

You can snap up a terrace house for £50,000 — or spend close to £1 million on a handsome stone villa with seven bedrooms.

And the scheme has brought this varied community closer together, according to Pam Warhurst.

Take one example. ‘The police have told us that, year on year, there has been a reduction in vandalism since we started,’ she says. ‘We weren’t expecting this.’

So why has it happened?

Pam says: ‘If you take a grass verge that was used as a litter bin and a dog toilet and turn it into a place full of herbs and fruit trees, people won’t vandalise it. I think we are hard-wired not to damage food.’

Pam reckons a project like Incredible Edible could thrive in all sorts of places. ‘If the population is very transient, it’s difficult. But if you’ve got schools, shops, back gardens and verges, you can do it.’

Similar schemes are being piloted in 21 other towns in the UK, and there’s been interest shown from as far afield as Spain, Germany, Hong Kong and Canada. And, this week, Mary Clear gave a talk to an all-party group of MPs at Westminster.

Todmorden was visited by a planner from New Zealand, working on the rebuilding of his country after February’s earthquake.

Mary says: ‘He went back saying: “Why wouldn’t we rebuild the railway station with pick-your-own herbs? Why wouldn’t we rebuild the health centre with apple trees?”

‘What we’ve done is not clever. It just wasn’t being done.’

The final word goes to an outsider. Joe Strachan is a wealthy U.S. former sales director who decided to settle in Tod with his Scottish wife, after many years in California.

He is 61 but looks 41. He became active with Incredible Edible six months ago, and couldn’t be happier digging, sowing and juicing fruit.

I find myself next to him, sheltering from the driving rain. Why, I ask, would someone forsake the sunshine of California for all this?

His answer sums up what the people around here have achieved.

‘There’s a nobility to growing food and allowing people to share it. There’s a feeling we’re doing something significant rather than just moaning that the state can’t take care of us.

‘Maybe we all need to learn to take care of ourselves.’

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[Gliondrach]

My Christmas cactus will be flowering again soon. It flowered in June this year, see post 197 above.

It has had flower buds for about three weeks but they stayed very small for most of that time. Three of them have become quite large in the last few days and might open on the 25th.

[Gliondrach]

The cactus flowers didn't open for Christmas but one looks as if it will open in a day or two.

[Gliondrach]

The first flower opened on the 1st January. There are six open now, three others are fading and one is still to open. Ten flowers in total.

[Gliondrach]

It'll soon be time to start my balcony farm. I will need to get containers and soil. I want to grow some of my own food. Especially after reading an article about what is done to fruit and veg before it appears in the shops. It goes much further than just putting wax on apples. It involves various gasses and chemicals. I can't find that article now.

[Gliondrach]

I've just watched Great British Railways Journeys on the telly. A bloke with a 1,000 acre farm grows delphiniums on about 17 acres (I think that it's 17) to supply natural confetti for weddings. He said that they bring in either 15 or 50% of his total earnings. Not sure if it was 15 or 50 because I didn't hear it clearly. The petals look as if they are dried before sending them off. He grows white, purlple, pink and two shades of blue. Might be a good idea for anyone with a bit of land.