Summer solstice, the longest day of the year, is an important date in the garden calendar. Besides some vegetables that are especially sensitive to day length, being better sown past this date (fennel, Oriental brassica’s), it also marks the end…
June is the best of times. The days are long and there’s enough daylight to go to the allotment even after dinner. There are extravagant peonies to pick for the vase and first strawberries to cherish. There are crisp lettuces…
Last week one of my best friends came for a visit. She lives 900 km away and this was the first time she and her family visited us here in the Netherlands. She’s one of my oldest friends and one…
Since rabbits continue to ignore the spinach on our allotment and there’s also a raised square bed full of spinach (3 different varieties) in our community garden, we harvest and eat spinach all the time. I have by now two…
Last time I went to the allotment, our neighbor, a gardening veteran, kindly asked whether I would like some rhubarb. I couldn’t help laughing because the 15 odd plants in our garden are enough even for me and my passion…
What’s eating your crops? Do you have a slug problem? Do you hate cabbage worms making holes in the leaves of your brassica? Carrot fly? Birds? In our organic, very diverse garden, pests are usually not a huge problem. But…