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I visited my friend Bernard the other day and was forced to try a couple of his wines. The first was his 2007 AOC Bergerac Rosé. Of course, this wine was still very young at only a few months old but rosé is best drunk young. This one was a very

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Some weeks ago the idea of a kind of international food growing bloggers get together was mooted. It was a kinda fun thing that grew out of various conversations by some blog writers, Patrick in Amsterdam, Kate in Adelaide and myself Well things have been quietly going on in the backstreets of the towns and countries around the world and I’m pleased to report that there are now Food Growing Bloggers Get Togethers planned for the next few years. They kick off this year with events on August 24.… Continue

I used to sit in a pub with a few friends and the conversation would eventually get around to gardening. At the time I was probably the only one out of the five or six of us who regularly met who didn’t grow food. You know the reasons, I was too busy, I worked long hours, I had a large garden which already took a lot of maintenance. So there we were, usually in a real ale pub, five fairly conscientious veggie growers and me. Every so often someone would claim they had grown the biggest potato,… Continue

This is my first year growing vegetables and I’m discovering I’m not very good at it. I’m especially, not very good at raising seedlings. I sow tiny little seeds that I can hardly see and usually, for me, not a lot happens! The surface of whatever container I have used seems to get a bit disturbed but that’s all. After several months of this I have only just realised that the problem is mice eating the seeds and the new growth! I’m not very good with trees either. I planted some cypress to form… Continue

I can tell spring has arrived! My workshop, normally the bastion of wood and metal bashing operations has suddenly taken on a fine green shimmer as boxes of seedlings sit in the window gaining the sunlight but avoiding the late frosts that still catch me out every year. This year, tomatoes and some geraniums fell victim to a late unexpected and unannounced frost. My normally reliable weather forecast showed an overnight temperature of 4C(about 40F) but in the morning the thermometer showed -2C (… Continue