Daikon, Yukon

Look what I made!
Okay, technically I didn’t make it. We all know that the seeds and the water and soil and the worms and the baby jesus (if you’re into him) are what actually made my daikon radishes.
But to this day, I still get an insane thrill and sense of maternal pride when I pick [...]

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The Little Garden that Could

Isn’t it funny how after you’ve thought of something for a little bit you begin to notice it everywhere.  A while ago a friend mentioned the photographer Cartier-Bresson.  I hadn’t thought of him in ages but since then I’ve seen his name and reference to his work all over the place.  Sunday at Spitalfields Market [...]

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A Good Yarn

There is a confession I should make: I knit.  Catch me on a good evening when my nose is just beginning to feel numb after a little too much wine and I’ll sing the praises of this ancient craft from here to Timbuktu.
This week my roving  knitting group met at the Science Museum and as [...]

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Keep off the Grass

I’ve been at it again – sticking my behind in the air, that is -  in pursuit of that most elusive of things, the perfect flower pic.  This time it was at Embankment Gardens just tucked to the side of Embankment station, which currently has a wonderful display of tulips in full, Technicolour glory.
Just as [...]

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“A Quick, Short, Sharp Shock to the Landscape”

On the back of my previous post about using urban spaces to create habitat for wildlife, I recently found a great video clip in which Richard Reynolds, of guerrilla gardening fame, explains how to make seed bombs.  You can see it on The Guardian site here.
I have no idea where one would get Devon [...]

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Toto, I Have a Feeling We’re not in Kansas Anymore

It’s been publicised for some time now that bee populations around the world are on the decline.  Following the initial press reports, I recall the insects became rather fashionable.  In fact that at the  Chelsea Flower Show two years ago, Fortnum and Mason, that swish Piccadilly shop frequented by tourists, diplomats and bejewelled old women, [...]

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We Have A Winner!

Yes, the Hall of Shame has it’s first winner of the year. These photos of the saddest little tomato plants you ever did see are from Karen Little (whose blog, Just Up The Dose is just fantastic -  you should go there and read it as soon as you’ve finished reading this). Karen had this [...]

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The Makings of Good Compost

What a pity no-one seems to have told Jacob Zuma that about the best way to deal with a newspaper one doesn’t like is to tear it up and put it on the compost heap.  Sueing them (now the Sunday Times and The Guardian) is a waste of time.
We’d do newspaper editors an enormous favour [...]

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Of Lost Emails, Rare Plants and Yellow Jumpers

Inspired by an organised (and now unemployed) banker friend who has zero tolerance for emails that languish in her inbox, I recently blitzed my own account with an impressive new filing system.  Bah! Do you think I can find anything?  Of course not.
One of the emails which went astray was from Barbara Knox Shaw telling [...]

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Gone To Seed

Over at the Guardian Online there’s a really beautiful gallery of electron micrographs of seeds and pollen from Kew’s Millenium Seed Bank Project. They look a lot like those glow-in-the-dark critters that you see in films about life at the bottom of the ocean – more space-age than organic.
They Seed Bank Project is very cool [...]

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