Growing food is not a hobby for me. Just as people planted ‘victory’ gardens during the war to stay healthy and fed, I do the same now. My income is not enough for me to [...]

Today is the 80th anniversary of VE day. Spending a lot of time with my grand parents as a child, I automatically picked up some of the war time habits and knowledge in my food [...]

I apologise that I have not posted for a while but I have been sent a few curve balls recently, including my lap top packing in. I am attempting to write this on my phone [...]

I don't buy lettuce. Instead I grow my own, inside in winter, and outside in summer.  I have always grown lettuce, even when I had a flat without a garden.  Lettuce seeds are so cheap [...]

Apparently, the potato came to Europe in the 16th century from South America.  It was once a food only eaten by the wealthy, but is now is a common staple in many households. I don't [...]

Here in the UK there is a distinct lack of plug or small vegetable plants.  Our local nursery usually has lots of peppers, tomatoes, beans, peas and sweet corn plants at this time of year.  [...]

I love growing herbs in my garden.  They provide extra nutrition, add so much flavour to my food, make lovely teas, are medicine, and add beauty (think gorgeous pink chive flowers or mini blue rosemary [...]

It has been a beautiful, sunny day today and so I thought that I would go outside into the garden and get some jobs done.  I usually don't go any where near the garden until [...]

Lots of people tell me that I am privileged and that they can not grow food as they do not have a garden.  Yes I know I am so lucky to have a garden   The [...]

We are officially into Autumn now and the last of my summer crops are finishing.  I am still hanging on hoping that some of my tomatoes may go red but I have harvested a lot [...]

I grew a new crop to me called Amaranth. I had heard that you could grow it like Quinoa that I tried for the first time last year. I am always interested in things that [...]

If we can avoid the supermarket and make things ourselves, we will.  This is especially true if they are made out of home grown produce.  Baked beans are really cheap from the shops but they [...]

At last I have built up enough tomatoes to make some sauce to use during the winter and so we canned some yesterday. Last summer was the first time that I had tried water bathing [...]

I had read about making courgette flour, apparently the Amish do it. It is gluten free and has low carbohydrate.  Since the shortages of flour in 2020 I have been interested in finding flour from [...]

I had a message from some one saying that they were giving up growing food as they were useless at it.  Seeds hadn't germinated, pests had destroyed crops, things had been slow to grow. and [...]

I didn't start growing courgettes until about 9 years ago.  I didn't think that they tasted of much and they took up a lot of my growing room.  When I retired, my food budget drastically [...]

The last few years have not been particularly good years for growing crops. This year has probably been one of my most unsuccessful years ever.  I am normally harvesting and eating most of my food [...]

My lemon balm is really doing well this year. I make hot drinks with it but I don't really utilise it enough.  It has a number of medicinal uses and so I am keen to [...]

A few weeks ago Mr S made me a raised, box tub out of some pallets that we had been given.  Previously he had made me a box out of some scaffolding planks that had [...]

It has been a very wet 18 months in the UK and farmers are already warning that there will be a potato shortage this year as many fields are still not ready to plant. Inevitably [...]

The rhubarb is loving all of this rain and so I am harvesting it a lot recently. Already I have made rhubarb gin, rhubarb brownies and a couple of days ago we made rhubarb crumble [...]

Mr S built me a raised bed that is quite tall to save me bending when I am gardening.  I could not afford to fill it with compost and so decided to fill it using [...]

It is that time of year here in the UK and the sowing of seeds has begun in anticipation of a garden full of food during the summer.  There is nothing better than the feelings [...]

I often get asked if it is worth growing my own food.  It does take quite a lot of time and effort, but it allows me to live on a small food budget and eat [...]