First crop of an old English apple…
Thought I’d share a photo with you of the first crop of a wonderful apple variety called Ellison’s Orange which is seldom seen now. They come from a tree planted in the grounds of one of our hotels last year as a thank you gift. Apparently they do […]
The first harvest of squashes…
In days of old when time was on my side and I could enjoy the merits of a large kitchen garden one of the most satisfying periods of the year was the harvesting of my late summer/early autumn squash. I loved watching these beauties grow, they would spread themselves across the […]
Update on my latest crop…
Previous years chilli growing has resulted in not only bumper crops of delicious fruits for me to eat but a welcome run of blog posts and visitors who have decided to have a go at growing them for themsleves.
There is no doubting the satisfaction of seeing your green fingered efforts come […]
Every Western kitchen should have some…
A couple of weeks ago my good mother found some Vietnamese coriander in a local garden centre which I duly pinched from her. I didn’t have any last year and I missed it, it is without doubt one of my favourite herbs and an essential ingredient in many of the […]
How to grow swiss chard…
Here’s a rare kitchen garden post! Having made more of an effort to stay at home this year and cut back on work and travel I thought it high time I grew something and amongst my modest and certainly downsized kitchen garden goodies are a couple of chard plants. Now I […]
Growing season for chillies in England…
I am toying with the idea of growing chillies again this year, two years on from my stupendous crops of mind blowingly hot fruits of Satan I think it’s time to do it all again. Truth be told I’ve missed my kitchen garden, last year I spent a lot of […]
Back home and all is well…
Well I’m back home in old blighty and it feels good. I’ve missed my home county and getting out in the fresh air. Back in England and the weather has been warmer than the south of Spain where I have been working for the last two weeks, work that one […]
Time in the kitchen garden…
My kitchen garden was forced into semi retirement last year when my career took a change for the busier. I had and indeed continue to have mixed feelings about giving it up, it has given me a lot of pleasure over the years, provided me with food, knowledge and a great […]
Growing tomatoes under glass in England…
Well despite my earlier ramblings about the cost of growing vegetables despite the credit crunch here I find myself ‘growing for glory’ once again. First of all this is a significant cut back compared to previous years, work commitments have made much of my previous horticultural adventures truly a thing […]
Something different for the kitchen garden….
Here’s a vegetable I am going to grow again this year, pea asparagus. Never heard of it? I hadn’t until I visited the Eden Project in Cornwall and bought myself a pack of their seeds. I grew them in a polytunnel a couple of years ago and they did very […]