Just a quick post about this fantastic kick starter campaign! We are already big fans of the GroCycle Oyster mushroom kit, we have one growing in our bathroom. They use old coffee grounds to grow Oyster mushrooms directly from, without much hassle at all. Seeing as Oyster mushrooms are generally quite expensive and we have… Continue reading Grow your own Oyster mushrooms! Back GroCycle Kickstarter campaign
Category: Gardening
Gardening
Build your own free DIY Pallet compost bin
What to do when you have too much spare compost that you are not quite ready to use, well I was politely told to “make your own compost bin”! Ideally it would be great to store it all in a free compost bin that does not get excessively wet or attract local squatters, in the form of… Continue reading Build your own free DIY Pallet compost bin
Free fertiliser from stinging Nettle tea!
A couple of weeks ago we were watching Monty Don one Sunday morning on BBC 2’s Gardeners World. He was talking through his “Jobs for the weekend” and was highlighting the benefits of stinging nettles being fantastic plant fertilizer and just how easy it was to make and would cost absolutely nothing!
Well that was it a man on a mission, free fertilizer! I was determined to give it go as there are always thousands of stinging nettles nearby. Plus there are no unpleasant chemicals or additives to worry about, plain and simple nitrogen rich fertilizer…
Runner bean, wheelie bin screen
For a while now we have been discussing our options how to partially hide our wheelie bins from view with some form of trellis and maybe a vigorous climber or vine (passion flower/clematis). Instead of purchasing a plant for the purpose, we could have always taken a cutting of one of our numerous climbers from the back garden. The initial downside was the lead time in which to get a cutting to take root and plant out was too long as we are already 4 weeks into summer. Plus any cutting would take many months to completely take up residence in advance of winter.
For a couple of weeks we have been deliberating where we could grow our runner beans this year, as you cannot grow them in the same location two years running.
Simple compost aerator from toilet rolls
This is a simple, sustainable and very green trick to help speed up your composting using old toilet rolls. The old trusty toilet roll, there are so many things one can do with them in addition to finding their way into the recycling bin!
We have previously used them as bio-degradable planters for our seedlings or brown mulch for our wormery to name a couple of great uses. Though our dog has really found a love for left over toilet rolls, she brings them to us asking for permission before chewing it to pieces.
Our frugal bamboo trellis for our peas
We could not leave it any longer, our “Champion of England Tall Climbing heritage peas” (yep that is their name) were desperately needing to run riot in the new raised vegetable plot. These are a very rare UK variety that was almost extinct commercially and can grow up to 10 foot tall. They seem ideal for those living in an urban location with limited garden space, like ourselves.
With the usual crop rotations, we cannot grow beans/peas in the same location two years in a row, so we could not do the usual wigwam construction in the main veg plot to support them all…
Building our permanent raised vegetable beds
To increase the amount of food we can grow in our garden each year, we had been contemplating how to make a more efficient use of the space available in our back garden without any large scale landscaping or demolition.
Raised vegetable plots were certainly the favoured option, but our requirements were not as straight forward as the last time we built raised beds in our previous properties, there were plenty more variables to consider this time.
From garden to plate in less than 15 mins
Ahh home grown fresh asparagus! They taste so much better than what you buy in the supermarket and we are not just saying that, they are sweeter, juicier and have a much stronger flavour.
Though neither Sherrie nor I have ever used an asparagus spear as a soldier substitute when dipping into boiled eggs, what were we missing!? They were absolutely yummy, though after a great debate whilst devouring our prey, we decided the next set of spears (ready in a week or two) will get the hollandaise treatment!
2 new dwarf trees: Peach & Apricot
Well we went out for a ‘quick look’ at one of the local garden centres on Saturday, which turned out not to be quick at all! Though we (ok i) came back with two dwarf fruit trees, a Peach and an Apricot!
I got permission from high command to approve the use of a little garden space for these two new additions to our edible family. Well I think we nearly have every possible fruit tree available and only in a small urban garden, it’s a good job they are of the dwarf variety lol…
Finally, potatoes planted out
Most of the potatoes have now been planted out, we were a little behind schedule (to say the least). They should have gone out a couple of weeks ago and were starting to get a little leggy and grown through the netting. Ooops!
Yes our chitting regime has been left a little by the wayside, instead of well sprouted tubers we opened the box to find them their long triffid ‘tendrils’ trying to escape through the gaps. Most of the years prior we have been pretty good at saving our egg cartons and getting the potatoes chitted, but this year we were so busy we fogot time and time again.