My homegrown harvest, May 2019.

I've had a few tiny, tasty harvests this month, I hope next month there'll be much more! 

I picked these chive flowers and have popped them in a bottle with some white wine vinegar to make chive blossom vinegar, so far it's very pink! 

I've had my first pickings from my front garden raised beds. I planted my red onion sets and garlic cloves too close together on purpose so I could strategically pick the thinnings for an extra harvest!  I've picked a few stems from my perennial Welsh onions that I've planted out in my flower beds this year.

I've picked a whole load of mint to dry, Joe buys mint teabags but I hope he'll like homegrown instead to save some money and the plastic-y teabags. 

That's about it for this month, have you been harvesting much from the garden this month?

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Diary of a permaculture (ish) garden, May 2019.

This month we got new garden furniture!  It's so lovely to sit out in the garden in comfort and the set is modular so it comes apart and goes back together in lots of different configurations.

In other, actual, gardening news, my front garden raised beds are going good.  The potatoes have all come up and so have broad beans, peas, coriander, borlotto beans, carrots, beets, onion, garlic, kale, cabbage, chard, sweetcorn, peppers and tomatoes.  I love having 4 raised beds instead of a car on my driveway! 

In the back garden my raised beds need some attention, but I've got broad beans and dwarf borlotto beans and lettuce and a crazy cauliflower in one bed, and some onions and bolted chard in the other.

I planted some 'walking onions' a while ago and I guess it's their time to go walking, cos they're growing little onion bulbs on their tops and flopping all over the place trying to plant themselves.

My Hotbin composter seemed pretty full so I emptied it and got some lovely compost to spread on my cottage garden bed.

Speaking of the cottage garden bed I've been pulling up all the many, many, many forget me nots, chopping up some of them and laying them down as a mulch, then putting a layer of Hotbin compost on top.  I've also watered with worm wee from my wormery and sprinkled some poppy seeds and other random seeds that came from cleaning out my seed tin.  I hadn't added compost here for a few years and you could definitely tell, the poor soil was as dry as dust. 

My Aunty Rose (not my biological aunty, but the lovely lady who I lived next door to for 20+ years when I was growing up) died this month, and I inherited (or rescued!) quite a lot of her chipped kitchenware that was heading for the tip.  One of those things was this old colander, which I've lined and filled with sedums.  I did this little metal watering can too, it was left in the garden by the previous homeowners and it leaks, so it's much cuter as a planter.

My apple trees have set some fruit!  Yey!

That's it really.  The garden is looking pretty and I'm feeling pretty tired after doing lots of gardening this month! 

How's your garden doing?

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Easy green actions and articles.

Here are a few easy online actions and interesting articles to make the world a better, greener, happier, place, 

Edinburgh has become the first city in the UK to have traffic-free days!  I love this idea and hope it spreads to other cities and towns. 

This is an interesting article, if the government actually does something - like put it's money and power behind eco initiatives, the UK could cut it's greenhouse gas emissions to ZERO by 2050 - yes please! 

How can I write one of these blog posts without mentioning Extinction Rebellion.  Oh my gosh, I may have wept a little bit watching the action taking place in the UK and all over the world to stop a climate catastrophe.  You can check out their website for what's happening now and to find your local group. 

Don't forget to donate to Extinction Rebellion if you can.  There's nowt doing in my town in terms of an XR group or protests, and I couldn't get to London for the big protests, the least I can do is give a donation.

Over the Easter bank holiday Britain went 90 hours without using electricity from coal - woop woop.

It is still not too late to act. It will take a far-reaching vision, it will take courage, it will take fierce, fierce determination to act now, to lay the foundations where we may not know all the details about how to shape the ceiling. In other words, it will take cathedral thinking. I ask you to please wake up and make changes required possible.

5 awesome quotes from Greta Thunberg.

Sign Friends of the Earth's petition asking the government to adopt their plan to stop a climate emergency.  See their 6 part plan here. 

And finally, the UK government has become the first in the world to declare an environment and climate emergency - and I'm really interested to see what'll happen next. 

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