Rolawn Direct are giving away 2 free Growbags worth £6.98 with every bag of Vegetable & Fruit Topsoil ordered online. Offer ends 5pm Monday 18/6/12, whilst stocks last. Free product will automatically be added to the order at despatch.
This is a great filler for raised beds. Once the beds are filled, the soil will last for several years.
Cucumber is the only redeeming feature in the NeverSeconds blog.
Martha, the 9 year old author of NeverSeconds, has shocked the world with photos of her sparse, unappetising school dinners. She has only posted 7 reports so far, and cucumber is one of the few healthy items to be seen on the plate.
cucumber-cut
Cucumber is easy for the school as it:
In 2005 TV launched a series on Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners which highlighted the importance of nutritional school meals. The NeverSeconds blog reminds us that more needs to be done and an increased effort is required to ensure that other fresh vegetables feature along with cucumber.
Have you ever seen this LEAF Marquee logo on a pack of vegetables or fruit and wondered what it means?
Leaf Marquee
The LEAF Marque is a food label you can trust from farmers who care. Produce identified with a LEAF Marque logo indicates it has been through an assurance scheme that means it has been produced by farmers whilst caring for the environment.
LEAF Marque produce appears on products sold nationwide in supermarkets, farm shops and farmers’ markets. You may have seen it on vegetables, salad, fruit, crisps, oil or even flowers.LEAF Marque farmers care for the environment by:
Look out for the LEAF Marquee label which indicates food that has been produced by farmers who care for the environment.
Rainfall in the TopVeg garden in April was 122ml.
2012 rain so far:
The annual rainfall in the TopVeg Garden:
The April rainfall in 2012 was 122ml. What was yours?
Today is St George’s Day, an ideal time to try a traditional english recipe.
Peas pudding can be served chilled on toast with salad, or heated up with roast beef and gravy!
Ingredients
* 1 pack of bacon
* 475gm split peas
* salt & pepper to taste
Method
* place split peas in a large oven proof dish
* cover with water
* add salt and pepper to taste
* leave soaking overnight
* chop the bacon and add to the mixture
* place in an oven heated to 150C until just set
* cool and then put in the fridge
Seven UK water authorities have announced that a hose pipe ban will start in April. Lack of rain over the last two years is causing a shortage of water.
Any irrigation using a hose pipe is against the law when a hose pipe ban is in place.
drip-irrigation-pipe
Vegetable gardeners can act now to save water and plan for the summer growing season. Things to do include:
Gardeners can act now to mitigate the affects of any hose pipe ban which may come to your part of the UK.
While maintaining your own fruit and vegetable garden is a rewarding undertaking, it can get expensive at times purchasing all the different products and going through all the different steps required to help your garden thrive. Composting, however, has an array of benefits that will all contribute to helping your garden flourish. Here are some of the many benefits of composting:
Composting is an easy way to help improve your garden and will offer you and your garden only advantages. You’ll spend less and at the same time have a healthier, fuller garden. Not to mention it’s incredibly easy to do so you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain!
Author Bio: -
Coleen Torres, blogger at phone internet, save money on home phone, digital TV, and high-speed Internet by comparing prices from providers in your area for standalone service or phone TV Internet bundles.
Start Your Spring Veg Early – a guest post by Hazel Rycroft
There are several reasons why you should start your spring vegetables from seeds in the next few weeks; by rearing young plants inside you can start ahead of the season and take advantage of a narrow, but sunny window of opportunity. Seedlings and young plants are incredibly vulnerable and even the slightest touch of frost can destroy them completely, so by protecting them during the early spring you can significantly increase their chances of survival.
Here is a quick and easy guide to get your vegetables off to a great start:
Planting:
First of all you need to buy your seeds. As you are starting early, and can control the temperature, you have the choice of a wide variety of different types of vegetables from around the world.
Once you have decided on your chosen crop you need to get out your planters, get your soil nice and moist (I recommend seed growing mix), and set to work. After you have filled all your little pots you can bury your seeds in the soil. Aim to push them down into the earth at least three times the length of the seed.
After putting them in direct sunlight, and watering them every day, all you have to do is wait for your seeds to sprout.
Hardening:
Many people put their plants straight outside once they have grown a bit bigger, but you need to harden them first. Your plants have had a very cushy life so far, and the shock of being dumped in the garden can see them off. You need to get them used to their new life before you send them into the cold. Here is a timetable for hardening off your budding vegetables.
|
Day |
Shade |
Sun |
|
1 |
2-4 hours on a nice day |
|
|
2-5 |
2-4 hours |
One hour |
|
6-7 |
2-4 hours |
2-4 hours |
|
8-10 |
2 hours |
6 hours |
|
11-12 |
8 hours |
|
|
13-14 |
all day and all night |
all day and all night |
Once you have planted your veg, you can look forward to a summer of great veg. Happy gardening!
National Nest Box Week starts on St Valentine’s Day; a suitable day to remember to provide homes for birds in the vegetable garden.
National Nest Box Week encourages everyone to put up nest boxes in their local area in order to promote and enhance:
nest-box-in-tree
TopVeg has made 9 nest boxes to put up in the vegetable garden and the surrounding area. They are different shapes and sizes in order to attract different species of birds, because birds are territorial. Robins, for example, do not like to have another family of Robins on their patch.
NestBox
Click this link for plans for making a nest box which are on the British Trust for Ornithology site.
The BTO have also produced a book called the Nest Box Guide which can be obtained from Amazon by clicking the link:
Help the birds in your garden by starting to make a nest box on Valentine’s Day!
The gardener’s valentine present could be a vegetable or fruit:
These well named fruit a veg would make a welcome valentine present for a gardener.
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