There’s not much that January is good for, apart from cosying-up by the fire, drinking the Christmas drinks cabinet dry and browsing seed catalogues. The minute New Year is over, hot off the press, brochures start to arrive at The Watch House by the sack-load.…
Has it really only been one week since Dan and I took on our allotment? Time has flown by. It feels like we have been perusing vegetable seed catalogues, planning what is going in which bed and deciding on the shed paint colour for months.…
My job takes me to all sorts of interesting places, some nice, some not so nice, but always interesting. This week I have been in Tuscany learning about winemaking and tasting some remarkable wines. This definitely counts as ‘nice’, or ‘bello’ as the Italians…
As the mornings get lighter my mind is turning once again to thoughts of growing my own. Each morning the first thing I do after getting out of bed is gaze, bleary-eyed, out of the window. Directly below are the raised beds in which we…
Autumn has truly arrived when it’s time for the RHS London Harvest Festival show. This annual event comes at a busy time for me, falling just before I embark on my annual buying trip to India and China. But it’s a good opportunity to reconnect with…
For some reason the woodland ride that connects the Chelsea Flower Show’s Artisan Gardens seemed particularly quiet this year. On previous visits this pleasantly shaded route has been thronged with visitors, to the extent that the grass bank opposite has needed to be reinforced…
For the last couple of days I have been getting to grips with our two gardens. Like time and tide, nature waits for no man when spring arrives. We’ve not experienced a frost yet in either London or Broadstairs so many plants are racing ahead.…
Mesembryanthemum crystallinum: bingcai, common ice plant, crystalline iceplant, ice greens. When in China, my general policy is to eat every food I am presented with: after all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I am rarely disappointed and often dazzled by the wonderful flavours,…
I always write my post about the RHS Autumn Harvest Festival Show will a tinge of sadness, as it falls just a few days before I head off to China. The dazzling displays of fruit, vegetables and autumn foliage remind me what I’ll be missing…
I was catching up on missed editions of Gardener’s World last night, listening to Monty Don bemoaning the fact that his outdoor tomatoes, although blight free, were stubbornly refusing to ripen. I could not help feeling a tiny bit smug (which is awful I know)…
