Little Green Space

Archive 2011

November 16, 2011

Derbyshire Eco Challenge

Have you taken the Derbyshire Eco Challenge yet? This month it's all about not wasting food. So much of the food we buy ends up in the bin - usually because we buy too much. This can be prevented by planning meals in advance, shopping carefully, and using leftovers to create new meals.

There are some fantastic ideas for using up leftover food on the Love Food Hate Waste website. We always seem to have a couple of over-ripe bananas in the fruit bowl, so I'm looking forward to trying out banana and walnut bread.

Of course, not buying too many bananas in the first place would also help, which is why this month's Eco Challenge for me will be to buy unpackaged fruit and vegetables. That way I'll only pick up what I actually need - and as an added bonus, there'll be a lot less packaging, too.

June 20, 2011

Carrots

At last I've done it! After four years of failure, I've finally managed to grow a carrot that isn't riddled with carrot fly. Quite a lot of carrots, in fact - two rows of healthy, maggot-free, orange crunchiness.

How have I done this? Well, I finally got around to buying a insect-mesh tunnel. I hate spending money on my plot - and really I should have made my own tunnel from recycled plumbers piping - but I can say that it was money well spent.

I've grown four varieties of carrot in the tunnel: early Nantes, Chantenay, Resistafly and Autumn King. After a family taste-test, the Chantenays were voted top for flavour, closely followed by the Resistafly. This surprised me, as I'd always assumed that a variety that's bred specifically to deter a certain pest or disease would lose out in the flavour stakes. But this has not been the case - the Resistafly carrots are very tasty!

June 14, 2011

Harvest

The harvest has begun! It's such an exciting time of year for all veg-growers, that moment when the first of the year's crops are harvested, and all that hard graft in the past few months suddenly seems worth it!

We've been eating potatoes galore - Arran Pilot and Duke of York have both turned out very well. The first broad beans have been eaten, and some have been frozen; there's also been mangetout peas, turnips, onions, garlic and heaps of salad.

Adding some eggs from our hens, we've managed to have a few "all from the garden" meals, which always makes me very happy!

February 15, 2011

Seedlings

My windowsills are filling up fast. February seems the right time to start sowing in earnest - indoors at least. On the go already are tomatoes (Gardener's Delight, Moneymaker, Roma and Red Pear), yellow peppers, salad leaves and pea shoots. I am particularly pleased that the pea shoots are germinating already - I sowed them using dried marrowfat peas, 79p for a massive bag from the supermarket. In the same supermarket I saw tiny bags of fresh pea shoots (probably washed in chlorine) for a pound. Buying supermarket pea shoots instead of growing in your own is crazy!

January 29, 2011

Big Garden Birdwatch results

We did the Big Garden Birdwatch this morning, and have submitted our results. The hour started a bit slowly, with not a bird in sight for the first five minutes (pretty unusual in our garden!)

Then the blue tits and great tits arrived, and from then on there was a constant flurry of activity. We saw 14 species in all, including a bullfinch and - joy! - a nuthatch.

Unfortunately our resident pheasants were nowhere to be seen - we have a group of two males and six females that visit the garden every day to scoff the expensive organic layers pellets we feed to the chickens! It would have been nice to see them in the birddwatch hour, but never mind - maybe next year.

January 25, 2011

Big Garden Birdwatch

It's Big Garden Birdwatch time again! Next weekend, we'll be spending an hour recording all the birds that visit our garden. We're hoping to see a nuthatch and a great spotted woodpecker, as we've seen both of these in our garden several times recently.

It's not just a bit of fun, though. The RSPB uses all the survey results - from around 280,000 gardens - to pinpoint bird species that may be in trouble. The results from previous years have already shown that house sparrows and starlings are in serious decline. This information then allows the RSPB to plan action that will help aid species recovery.

If you want to take part, the Big Garden Birdwatch takes place on Saturday 29 January and Sunday 30 January, so brush off those binoculars and get watching!

January 19, 2011

Getting started

I always get impatient to get growing at this time of year, even though it's really too early to do anything very much.

Potatoes are a good place to start, though: I chitted first early seed potatoes in January last year, got them into sacks and pots in the greenhouse in late February, and was harvesting by early June. I tend to go a bit mad with seed potatoes most years - how can anyone resist all those different varieties? - but this year I am trying to be more restrained, and just grow potatoes that have worked for me in the past.

Last year I had great success with Duke of York (first early), Charlotte (second early), Lady Balfour (early maincrop) and Cara (late maincrop). These will all be grown again this year. Swift and Rocket first earlies just didn't do it for me - low yield of very tiny potatoes - so they've been axed. I have grown Kestrel and Sarpo Miro potatoes for the past couple of years, too, and whilst they have produced bumper crops of fantastic-looking, disease-free spuds, I just don't think they taste all that great. So I'll be giving them a miss this year.

I am trying one new variety, though: Arran Pilot, a first early. This is because it gets pretty good reviews in all the catalogues and gardening magazines. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you can pick up a bag of 40 tubers for less than three quid in Wilko's!