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The other morning Toby and I were sitting around insulting each other. The conversation ran over the normal you-smell-and-your-face-looks-like-a-pickled-onion (yes, we are most courteous and poetic when together – you might almost believe we liked each other), and skipped into more delicate territory. Before I knew it, I heard him saying ‘and your carrots are [...]

Image by Lotus Johnson Spring meadows are utterly entrancing, lit up with drifts of bulbs catching tentative sunlight and dew. Although creating and establishing them requires some elbow grease, the results are more than a just reward. Anticipating the first bulbs keeps me going through the darkest of winter days. So I’m taking the time [...]

Earlier this year, the kind people at Plantworks sent me some samples of Rootgrow to try in the Garden from Scratch. Rootgrow is an organic product which increases plants’ strength by multiplying their root systems. More roots means more food, means a happier plant. It works by using friendly mychorrizal fungi which are necessary for [...]

Oh why would you buy a pasty, bland pumpkin after eating this homegrown specimen? As I cut these fruits open, I could see the sugar seeping out of their flesh. I drank in their sweet scent, chopped them up, roasted them on trays with a dash of sunflower oil, and made them into sweet, nutty [...]

Every once in a while, you find a blog which you can’t stop returning to. Which is so beautifully written and designed that you look forward to the next post. And it was when I realised I was subscribed to both emails and the RSS feed for Carrots and Kids that I realised it was [...]

Last week we dug the last of our potatoes and this week we have been browsing seed potato suppliers trying to decide which varieties to plant next year. There always seems to be so much to take into consideration. Suppliers are obviously going to present the seed potatoes that they sell in the best light [...]

There’s something marvellous about a garden built from scratch, especially when that garden used to look so very strange. Claire Sutton knows all about this. When she arrived in her derbyshire garden five years ago, it was a playground of the bizarre, featuring a miniature railway, a fake stream, a pagoda, a fake stone barbecue [...]

As the days grow shorter and cooler, we look forward to eating warmer meals with more pungent flavors and spices. Red cabbage is one of our favorite vegetables at this time of the year. It can be used in a number of ways, raw in salads, sauteed with apples, as soup and as ingredients for [...]

I don’t feel it’s coming to an end just yet. Maybe I’m hopelessly optimistic, but save for a gash of bloodred virginia creeper at the back of the garden, autumn hasn’t arrived in the flower borders. This is partly because I’ve used plants which are masters of deception: late-flowering verbenas, cosmos, cobaeas, passion flowers, tagetes [...]

——————————————————————————————————————————- Fennel & Fern readers can get 10% off on flower, vegetable and fruit seeds and plants at Victoriana Nurseries. Just click here to claim an automatic discount. Subscribe to F&F updates ——————————————————————————————————————————-

In case you haven’t already, it is time to harvest your pumpkins. As August drew to a close, I cut back any leaves overshadowing the fruits on my ‘Delica’ and ‘Uchiki Kuri’ plants to allow the skins to ripen and thicken. Then, as the nights grew colder, I cut them off their vines, leaving an [...]