Abel and Cole is currently giving away free sunflower seeds, with an added prize of organic food goodies for the person who grows the tallest sunflower from their packet of seeds. To improve your chances of winning, Groweatgift presents top ten tips for growing tall sunflowers. 1 As the name suggests, sunflowers like the sun rather […]
Read moreGrow, cook, win
This lovely competition idea on wegrowourown.co.uk requires entrants to produce a dish from seasonal ingredients then submit photographic proof of their efforts along with the recipe, in order to win as-yet-unnamed food prizes. If I wasn’t travelling, I’d so be entering because it’s such a lovely idea and free food is always good, but sadly […]
Read moreFeeling seedy?
Seeds are wonderful things. Not only does that tiny, portable dot contain all the information that it needs to turn into a plant – in the case of fruit and veg, one that has the capacity to provide us with food – but seeds are cheap and you get loads of them in a packet: lots more than you […]
Read moreKiller gardens (and not a triffid in sight)
One of the things I love about gardening is that everyone shares tips. One of my lovely friends has just been bitten by the gardening bug, but almost had a disaster on her hands when her small and adorable puppy ate a single ivy leaf. Two days later and the poor thing was still being […]
Read morePreserve the herbs
Another great link courtesy of HomeGrownEdible, explaining how to preserve herbs by making mint jelly (which seems different from mint sauce based on the recipe, given that the standard mint sauce recipe is just mint, sugar and vinegar), herb butters and horseradish sauce. Useful if your herb garden runneth over, and the presentation idea […]
Read moreCompetition update: festival tickets, spotty boots and £15,000 up for grabs
It’s showtime! Or at least, it would appear that way from the amount of competitions currently springing up offering free tickets to gardening shows. This week you can win tickets to the Chelsea Flower Show with getintogardening.com, tickets to the Malvern Spring Show with Gardener’s World and tickets to both the Aztec Gardening Summer Show […]
Read moreGrow your own cocktails #3: Create a cocktail garden
Following on from my grow your own cocktails articles, I’ve discovered* a fabulously researched and detailed piece on creating cocktail gardens that’s well worth reading (tarragon, sorrel and borage sound particularly interesting options, particularly as borage is a really common weed so it’s nice that it has a use in cocktails. I’m thinking that […]
Read more