I’m trying something new with my diary. Rather than just publish it on this website, I’m also going to record a new weekly video, called “The gardening week’. This diary, will be the show notes for the video. I’m also publishing the audio from the video as a podcast, again...

I’m trying something new with my diary. Rather than just publish it on this website, I’m also going to record a new weekly video, called “The gardening week’. This diary, will be the show notes for the video. I’m also considering publishing the audio from the video as a podcast,...

After the big push last week, my gardening activities slowed down considerably, or at least it felt like it. The difference was that we were coming to the end of the major autumn jobs, in fact the end of the major jobs until spring. What’s in front of us now...

Even though I’ve been gardening for about 6 years now, the autumn workload always takes me by surprise. I think I’ve got a nice schedule, just two beds to clear and re-plant each week, but then reality gets in the way. Ten days of rain in the long range forecast,...

We were on holiday last week at a gathering of the clan/family get together, in three forest lodges just near Matlock. I spent most of my time hiking with the kids, when we weren’t eating. Naturally I took my own salads and granola! As a result we didn’t do a...

After a couple of weeks of cloudy, windy and drizzly weather, we’ve had a week of extremely sunny/mild weather and it’s been used to good effect on the allotment. I’ve had nothing to sow this week, but I’ve been busy clearing beds and planting. Unfortunately the nights have also been...

Although the weather is predicted to improve next week, summer definitely seems to have finished here. The outdoor summer plantings are definitely feeling it too. The high winds have battered the climbing beans, the constant damp has stimulated an explosion of snails and slugs, the outdoor tomatoes are showing signs...

It’s been an unusual week for me, dominated by the decision to have one of our lovely cats put down. We knew he didn’t have long, as he was in end stage kidney failure and the vet had given him between 2 and 8 weeks to live. That grim verdict...

The hoped for rain finally arrived, after 100+ days of near drought. The rain’s not finished yet, but we are hoping for total of 40mm, which will be amazing and make a huge difference to our workload for the rest of August and of course the plants growth. Despite the...

The hoped for heavy rain didn’t arrive this week, I think the predicted 35 mm turned in to 10mm which is almost always the case here. It was cloudy though so I didn’t have to water as much as usual. I’ve done very little gardening this week, no sowing and...