I planted three small tubers of jerusalem artichokes in the spring of 2013. They grew really well and were huge long stems with tiny yellow flowers on the top.
I decided to dig them up this week. I wasn’t expecting a huge crop. However I dug up a bucket full and a plastic tray full. I gave some away and will be eating some of them. Some are going to come to the seed swap with me though on March 24th. They are easy to grow and are good roasted!
I hadn’t weeded the bed recently – it’s been winter! Just at the edge of the photo you can see some self sown mizuna which is doing really well and I’ve been picking that. I was planning on cloching it up but it’s been too windy and hasn’t been cold enough to need it.

Vegetable Seed Saving Handbook
Why Save Seeds?

How to Grow Healthy Seeds

Saving Heirloom Seeds

How to Save Pure Seeds

Breed Your Own Varieties

Seed Isolation Distances

Seed-Specific Instructions

Harvesting Your Seeds

Storing Your Seeds

Build an underground greenhouse
This is probably just a pipe dream for most UK allotmenters. The regulations on most allotment sites wouldn’t allow you to build one of these underground greenhouses and indeed the stats of the soil on many sites would preclude it too – unless you were aiming for a swimming pool.

I know on my allotment there’s clay not far under the surface and it’s very deep so you’d be digging out a huge amount of clay – which you’d have to put somewhere. If it didn’t leak in then it’d be dry but if water found its way in you’d basically have built a pond for it to fill.

I also think that it’s likely to be a bit risky in softer soils where the sides would need lots of reinforcing.

Parrafin is expensive – we know it works for keeping greenhouses frost free, but the price has gone up and up.

I’d seem this tecnique advertised as a way of heating an office – but here’s Sean using it to heat his greenhouse.

We have a max/min thermometer in ours so if I can find the clay pots to use with it then I’ll measure the temperature. I know I have one large clay pot but it may be I have no small ones! I noticed a price label on sean’s small pot so it might be he didn’t have any either and had to go buy them.
I don’t know where you get such cheap nightlights from though – I think ours were 2p each. But this is an interesting thing to try.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVDB8kr8MmA

Sweep out the floor, take out everything you can.
Wash the glass – inside and out.
Use a dish brush to do the metal. Clear out the crud from the door runner.

Fumigate using either a Sulphur candle or a
Greenhouse Garlic Smoke

Use Jeyes Fluid to wash the glass and floor. Dilute as per instructions.

Wash down all shelves.

About the Original Jeyes Fluid Outdoor Disinfectant is a powerful multi-purpose outdoor cleaner that’s ideal for a wide range of garden cleaning jobs:

•Disinfects surfaces

•Safely removes dirt

•Cleans and disinfects pots, containers, seed trays, hanging baskets, green houses, garden tools and much more!

Facts

Powerful and versatile outdoor cleaner and disinfectant

Used throughout the garden

Kills bird flu, Newcastle disease, Paramyxovirus, Stangles

Wash pots and trays in diluted jeyes fluid too.
Use a big bucket of hot water outside so your hands don’t freeze off. Stop for drinks regularly if you’ve got lots of pots to do! Use a dish brush to get off the dirty and give them a quick swirl round. Leave to drain and they’re ready for using again!

Grow It, Cook It, Eat It
Watch it on iplayer – but hurry

Live Longer Wales is a season of programmes from BBC Cymru Wales inspring us to change our lives.

Wales’s top chef, Dudley Newbury, is on a mission to change the way his Valleys home town of Ynysybwl thinks about food: how to grow it, how to cook it, how to eat it. His goal is simple – to get the community to join together to rediscover the ability to grow, shop and prepare healthy meals from scratch, using locally produced ingredients. It’s not just about taking inches off their waistlines. It’s about adding years to their lives. In this first episode, we see Dudley research and pitch his plans for a school-based community garden in the village. But as well as getting locals to agree to the idea, he’s got to persuade everyone to join him, from school kids to pensioners. He also meets local parents to hear their worries and comes up with a crafty plan to get one family to take on their takeaway habit and share a healthy meal.

You may remember the experiment I did with the bits you cut off the bottom of sprouts when you’re preparing them.
Well I was clearing out the greenhouse and discovered this.

A sprout!

Starting off with the bottom bit of a sprout, keeping it in a saucer of water and then translanting the ones that rooted into pots. They could have gone in the ground and maybe I’d have got a much bigger plant! I will be trying again and planting out to see how big the plants can get!

See my original item – Growing things from kitchen scraps

Daubenton kale is a perennial kale.
It’s only available through cuttings though – does anyone have it? Does it taste nice?

Do you ever find pallets really hard to dismantle?
This technique could be useful but please watch your toes!

This Sunday – 29th September, Charles Dowding is giving a talk in hulme, Manchester
September 29th, 2013 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Location
The Yard
Work For Change
Hulme M15 5RE
Contact
Phone: 0161 226 2242
Event Fee
Event Fee £ 5.00

Book and pay at the link above!