A healthy soil is full of organic matter: plants and animals which have decomposed and provide nutrients for future growing plants. A healthy soil is also full of living animals, large & small, from centipedes to earthworms.

More widely the Earth provides numerous habitats for a diverse flora and fauna. It is important for us to provide different areas in our gardens to give the variation that is needed to look after our wildlife. Hedgehogs appreciate a wild area to rest in, but they venture out into the veggie patch to find slugs & snails. We could do with more of them, as they eat the slugs which eat our plants. This post explains more about hedgehog care.

This pigeon nest was in our bay tree. One of our contributions to World Earth Day!

We have evidence! In March a few years ago our friend, the Chef, dug up a 7 m square patch from his lawn. Within 3 months he was digging his first early potatoes.

Don’t worry if you can’t lay your hands on a garden rotavator. Use a spade to turn over a very thin piece of turf & chop it up into little bits. Aim to get small crumbs of soil.

Three months after digging up his lawn the Chef had a vegetable garden. Follow this link to see the variety of veg: carrots, broad beans, potatoes, beetroot and onions.

Now is the time to have a go- dig up the lawn (a small part of it) and grow veg!

“World Soil Day 2019 (#WorldSoilDay) and its campaign “Stop soil erosion, Save our future” is envisaged to raise awareness on the importance of sustaining healthy ecosystemsand human well-being by addressing the increasing challenges in soil management and, raise the profile of healthy soil by encouraging governments, organizations, communities and individuals around the world to engage in proactively improving soil health.”

Gardeners know that a healthy soil is essential for successful vegetable production. Soil structure has to be maintained so that rain water can drain away through the soil. A well structured soil is made up of small crumbs. Air collects between the crumbs and provides plant roots with oxygen. A good soil will provide the roots with air, water and nutrients, in the right amounts. But the crumbs are easily damaged, particularly if the ground is run on when it is wet. So, stay off the soil when it is wet! That is why we have narrow beds surrounded by footpaths. We are able to do most of the work in the garden without stepping on the beds. we stay on the paths and lean over the beds.

As our climate has changed, and we get more rain later in the year, we now do our winter digging in the new year.

A healthy soil will contain a lot of living organisms, from earthworms to bacteria and fungi. These all live together in balance, helping each other by aerating the soil and breaking down old vegetation to make humus. Humus helps retain moisture and nutrients.

A good way to find out if your soil is healthy is to bury a pair of pants. After eight weeks in a healthy soil the pants will start to disintegrate as they are broken down by the soil organisms.

Spreading well rotted farm yard manure on the soil in spring will increase the soil organic matter and aid soil health.

Today, World Soil Day, is a good time to bring in measures to improve and nurture your soil.

There are plenty of jobs to do in the garden in November. it is a good time to plant peas and beans which are important sources of protein for vegans and vegetarians. Seeds planted now will develop into sturdy plants over the winter and produce early crops. But remember to protect them from rabbits and birds. These pests can devour a row of plump seedlings in a few hours!

There are many different varieties of peas and beans which will help to bring variety into your dishes. Broad beans, such as Aquadulce Claudia and Express, can be sown outdoors in November, World Vegan Month. The Sutton is a compact variety of broad bean which is ideal for sowing in pots. Growing beans over the winter in pots is better if you have cold wet soil.

Peas such as Meteor or Kelvedon Wonder can be sown in the autumn to give an early crop next year. But watch out for mice who like to eat the young tips.

Broad beans and peas are an excellent source of protein and fibre, with good levels of vitamins A and C, iron and magnesium. these are essential for the Vegan diet.

So, get gardening and make the most of World Vegan Month.

We actually had a practice run at pumpkin carving yesterday. There are pumpkins everywhere, in all the shops, and we just could not wait until Halloween when we usually do our carving. So we decided on a practice session, which meant we had carved pumpkins ready for Pumpkin Day.

Luckily, we put down plenty of newspaper before we started, so were able to roll up the mess when we had finished! The children used a black pen to draw a picture on the pumpkin, before they started carving. My favourite is always a cat’s face with whiskers!

The top of the pumpkin is sliced off and all the seeds are scraped out. These are saved for the bird table. Any pulp removed from the pumpkin is put in a bowl ready to make pumpkin soup.

We were pleased with our carved pumpkins and have put them on the doorstep to celebrate Pumpkin Day!!

World Food Day was launched by the United Nations in 1945 to celebrate the formation of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. (FAO)  This year, 2019, the theme is “to take action to achieve healthy diets for a zero hunger world.’  FAO argue that healthy sustainable diets should be both affordable and accessible to all.

Growing your own fruit and veg is a great way to achieve a healthy diet.  Fresh produce is full of vitamins, minerals and fibre.  The pulses like peas and beans are a great source of protein.  Herbs add flavour to meals and help to vary the way veg are presented.  Tomatoes sliced with chopped chives and vinegar, taste completely different from a tomato and garlic flan cooked with rosemary.  Similarly, new potatoes boiled with mint contrast to potatoes roasted in butter with rosemary.

FarmingFriends and TopVeg have collaborated to produce an ebook called ‘How to Grow Herbs for Cooking.’ Anyone can grow herbs even if space is limited.  Window boxes and balconies can produce a constant supply, as only a small amount of herbs are needed in most dishes.  One friend of TopVeg sent a photo of the herbs she was growing against the wall of her appartment block in the middle of a very dense city.

Why not mark World Food Day potting up some herbs that are growing outside, and bring them in for the winter.  Chives, mint, parsley, or tarragon will grow well on a a south-facing windowsill, and provide an aromatic extra to your winter cooking.

How Brits used ‘grow your own’ to survive the World Wars

Although, the First World War was deemed to be the ‘war to end all wars’, we now know that, just two short decades later, another conflict unfolded that would have similar devastating effects.

Starvation was a real fear throughout this period. In the 1930s, Britain imported 70% of its food , which required 20 million tonnes of shipping each year. It was recognised by the Germans that cutting off such imports could lead to mass starvation, so Britain had to act.

In this article, Arbordeck, who specialise in timber decking, have taken a look at how the country dealt with the threat, and how ‘growing your own’ helped the country during the hardest of times.

An insight to rations
To ensure that everyone was fed, the early 1940s saw the British government implement a rationing system. A typical weekly food ration for an adult included:
4oz margarine
1 fresh egg and a dried egg allowance
2oz butter
4oz bacon and ham
The equivalent of two chops (monetary value of one shilling and two pence)
Three pints of milk
4oz cooking fat
2oz tea
12oz of sweets every four weeks
8oz sugar
2oz cheese
1lb of preserves every two months

While the war ended in 1945, rationing wasn’t abolished until 1958. It was looked upon as a way to regulate food production and usage.

Using our garden spaces
Did you know that a 25% of butter imports and 50% of cheese imports came from New Zealand at this time? Eighty percent of fruit was also imported. This led to the Dig for Victory campaign being launched by the Ministry of Food in October 1939, one month after the outbreak of the war. Professor John Raeburn, an agricultural economist who was recruited by the Ministry of Food led the campaign until the end of the war.

This encouraged the British public to transform their gardens into vegetable patches. Its aim was to replace imported food with locally grown produce in a bid to free up shipping space for more valuable war materials and also replace any goods that were sunk in transit – German submarines were responsible for Britain losing out of 728,000 tonnes of food by the end of 1940.
In cities, public parks were transformed into allotments and the lawns outside of the Tower of London were even turned into vegetable patches. The campaign proved to be a roaring success, with it estimated that home gardens were producing over one million tonnes of produce by 1943.

Interestingly, when the war ended, the Royal Horticultural Society reported that there were 1.4 million allotments in the country. By 1945, around 75% of all food consumed in Britain was locally produced as Pig Clubs – it’s estimated that 6,000 pigs were kept in gardens and back yards in this year, chicken coops and rabbit keeping also became popular as Britain attempted to grow their own source of protein.

The beginning of the Women’s Land Army
The Women’s Land Army was birthed during the first World War but was greater relied on during the second. Here, females would help farmers and market gardeners by replacing the workers who had gone to war. By 1944, over 80,000 women were in the British Women’s Land Army, before it was eventually disbanded in October 1950. Without this workforce, Britain would have struggled to continue their harvesting.

Growing your own vegetables aided citizens both in their health and financially, and became a crucial part of the country’s operations. So much so that in recent years, the government urged Britain to return the Dig for Victory campaign in a bid to combat possible food shortages and the ‘disastrous’ consequences it could bring.

Sources
https://history.howstuffworks.com/world-war-ii/start-world-war-2.htm
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Rationing-in-World-War-Two/
https://www.cooksinfo.com/british-wartime-food/
http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item107597.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/9996180/How-Dig-for-Victory-campaign-helped-win-the-War.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9996129/Britain-may-need-to-dig-for-survival-minister-says.html

This is a sponsored post

grow your own soft fruit

This eBook is available on Amazon Kindle or as a pdf by clicking the PayPal button below.  The pdf version costs £1.99.

Grow juicy, healthy berries and vitamin packed fruit with the help of this ebook. Simple, straightforward steps lead you along the planning stages of starting a fruit garden, through planting and soft fruit growing, to harvesting the produce..
This guide helps you:
• Select a site
• Deal with your soil
• Plant soft fruit
• Look after the fruit bushes and fruit canes, so the plants flourish and become productive!
• Harvest the poduce – showing you the right way to pick strawberries and raspberries, and how to pull rhubarb.

The rewards of growing your own soft fruit start in May, when Rhubarb is pulled for the kitchen, and continue through to October as the last autumn friuiting raspberries are picked. Soft fruit bushes and canes keep growing year after year, once they have been planted. So making a fruit garden is an investment.
You do not need a lot of space or even a lot of money to start growing your own soft fruit. Some fruit, like strawberries, can be grown inside on the windowsill or fruit can be grown outside, in soil. Soft fruit can be grown in:
• pots
• containers
• raised beds
• grow bags
• window boxes
• or directly in the garden soil
Growing soft fruit is not difficult. Most fruit bushes and canes are vigorous and robust. They are quite hardy and do not need mollycoddling.

This instructive ebook will help you plant a productive fruit garden. It discusses the best sites and lists the main soft fruit bushes and fruit canes that are easy to grow, including:
• Blackberry, loganberry and tayberry
• Black currant
• Blueberries
• Gooseberries
• Raspberries
• Red and white currants
• Rhubarb
• Strawberries

This book has been written for beginners and experienced gardeners, with school gardening in mind, pointing out that choice of varieties should be influenced by holiday dates. Nothing is more disappointing than missing out on the fruits of your labour because school has broken up. But choosing an early or late fruiting variety will get over this problem.
A fruit garden takes children outside, and enables them to have practical experience of growing their own food. It teaches them about their natural environment, the weather, the seasons, plant growth and various ecosystems.
Eco Schools, Forest Schools, and community groups, such as guides and scouts can use this book to develop a fruit garden project.
Sally Osgerby is the author of TopVeg, one of the world’s most influential sites on the growing of vegetables, fruit and herbs.. TopVeg gardener, Mike, has over 50 years experience of fruit and vegetable production.
Return on effort is his priority. So his advice is streamlined to make sure that every ounce of effort has an edible outcome!

Anyone can grow soft fruit. This straight forward, easy to follow ebook, full of practical advice, makes it achievable.

To obtain a pdf of the Grow Your Own Soft Fruit eBook for £1.99 click this PayPal button

Grow Your Own Soft Fruit eBook is also available on Kindle

blueberries

Site

• Sunny, although will cope with partial shade.
• Sheltered from wind and frost.

Soil

• Acidic, so best grown in a large containers filled with ericaceous compost.
• sandy
• well irrigated

Blueberry bushes:

• make an attractive low growing bush
• grow to about 180cm (6 feet) tall, depending on variety.
• some varieties require another variety for pollination.
• will fruit 1 year after planting.
• ideal for growing on the patio in a large container filled with ericaceous compost.
• are covered in masses of sweetly scented creamy white flowers in the Spring.
• have leaves which change to an delightful crimson colour in Autumn.

Harvest

• Ripen in July and August
• Pick the berries when they are ripe.

blueberry bowl

Nutritional value of blueberries:

• high in fibre
• calcium
• vitamins A and C
• more antioxidants than many other fruits and vegetables

Raspberry Tulameen

Site
• Sunny, although will cope with partial shade.
• Sheltered

Soil
• Must be well drained.
• Fertile
• Do not like chalky soil.
• Clear the soil of all weed roots.

Plant
• Any time between November and March, when the ground is frost free.
• Always buy raspberry plants certified free of virus diseases.
• Plant in rows running North to South.

raspberry row

• Plant canes 45 cm apart apart
• In a large hole big enough to hold the roots spaced out. Cover the roots with 8 cm soil so that they are quite shallow. Firm the soil down well.
• Then cut back the stems to just above a bud about 23 cm above ground level.

Cultivation
• In March spread 3 handfuls of general fertiliser per plant along the row.
• Mulch thickly (about 8 cm) in late March to retain soil moisture and to prevent weed growth.
• Tie new canes into the supports as they grow.

raspberry knot

• Remove weeds as they appear. Pull out any suckers that appear out of the row line.
• Keep the row moist by watering when needed. Water well during harvest to get juicy berries.
• Protect the fruit from birds with netting.
• When summer fruiting varieties have finished harvest, cut all the old canes ( that have had fruit) down to ground level. Select 2 or 3 of the strongest new canes that have grown during the summer & tie them in. Cut all the other new canes out at ground level.

raspberry shoots

• Autumn fruiting raspberries are pruned in February. Cut all the canes down to ground level.

Harvest
• Summer fruiting varieties in June & July. Autumn raspberries fruit in September & October.

rasp before picking

• Pick the berries when they are ripe.
• Pull the berries off the core with fingers wrapped gently round the berry

Glen Ample

Pests and Diseases
• Aphids
• Birds