National Tree Week, 23 November – 1 December this year, was launched in 1975 to raise awareness of the huge role that trees play in all of our lives. It coincides with the start of the winter planting season, an ideal time to get people working together in the rain and cold to improve their… Continue reading National Tree Week 2024
Cooking with Cider this Christmas?
How about pheasant with caramelised apple and cider sauce! Ingredients (to serve 2-4) Method Pheasant and cider sauce Caramelised apples Once the sauce mixture is reduced, pour over and serve! Top tip This is a lovely, tasty wintery dish using well hung pheasant but if you’re not the gamey type, it works equally well… Continue reading Cooking with Cider this Christmas?
Monty Don’s Urgent Hessian Sack Advice
BBC presenter Monty Don makes a helpful suggestion about caring for bareroot plants on delivery, but do you have enough hessian? Monty Don has done more to get girls in the garden than any other handsome, famous face: those cheekbones and that cheeky grin. For that, he is eternally forgiven for everything as far as… Continue reading Monty Don’s Urgent Hessian Sack Advice
HortWeek, the coolest name in the industry, releases the last 2 parts of their peat-free garden podcast extravaganza
Read our musings on parts 1 & 2. Full disclosure: peat bans are in our financial interests, so we have publicly supported them for years. It’s nothing personal against people who want to grow with peat: we liked growing with peat too. We don’t specialise in the plants that most benefit from peat, we already… Continue reading HortWeek, the coolest name in the industry, releases the last 2 parts of their peat-free garden podcast extravaganza
The Hedge Laying Down With A Lamb
Hedge laying is pretty important to anyone with an old country hedge: it’s uncommon to see a garden hedge laid, but most species are suitable Hedge laying is an ancient technology, passed down since at least the Bronze Age. It became super important in Britain with the Enclosures starting in 1603, when big open fields… Continue reading The Hedge Laying Down With A Lamb
Foraged Blackberry & Apple Crumble
Do you have a freezer full of blackberries? If not, then ignore the blackberry & enjoy your apple crumble! This time of year, mid-November, is hefty with apples. Down here in sunny Somerset, the late blackberries are only recently all gone from the bushes. If you have helpful kids around, chances are you have bags… Continue reading Foraged Blackberry & Apple Crumble
Rose Hips are Pretty & Good to Eat
Rose hips are mostly an ornamental second display from Autumn into Winter, but all rose hips are edible if you want to go through the trouble of preparing them And almost all roses will make hips if they get pollinated and you allow them to develop, which is not usually the case with a typical… Continue reading Rose Hips are Pretty & Good to Eat
North Wales St Asaph Tree Nursery
Denbighshire County Council’s Local Provenance Tree Nursery at St Asaph grows 24 native tree species using stylish Air Pots™, and so can you On the Bionet Wales website, we can read about how St Asaph focuses on using local provenance seeds and cuttings of native trees. With the help of volunteers, they propagate tens of… Continue reading North Wales St Asaph Tree Nursery
Smoky Sausage Stew Recipe
Looking for complete satisfaction of all bellies in the immediate area? You sure done come to the right place this time You can do this stew with a vegan sausage if you like, you can do this with a Cumberland or a sneaky sausage: it’s the size of the sausage in the stew that counts.… Continue reading Smoky Sausage Stew Recipe
Lazy Sunday Fruit Tree & Rootstock Grafting Videos
Grafting is one of Mankind’s ancient technologies, generally done in Spring onto rootstocks planted a full year ago Grafting two plants together happens naturally when compatible species jam up against each other, rubbing their bark off and then getting stuck long enough to fuse together. You see this quite often when inspecting old willows, whose… Continue reading Lazy Sunday Fruit Tree & Rootstock Grafting Videos