How many of you have heard of Jerusalem Artichokes? Not the Globe Artichokes that you can easily buy in the supermarket, but Jerusalem Artichokes? No? No-one? Well you’re not alone. I hadn’t heard of them either until we were researching perennial vegetables.
Tag Archives: Gardening
I love HOT chilli sauce!
It’s true! Hot sauce is amazing and thankfully Hugh grows lots of chillies for me and every year grows a new variety that he’s never grown before. 3 years ago it was a yellow variety with a lemony, hot flavour called Lemon Aji. Last year it was a variety called Red Basque. This year heContinue reading “I love HOT chilli sauce!”
Who Knew Parsnips Are So Versatile?
The humble parsnip is a vegetable that only EVER was roasted in our home before we started our smallholding lifestyle. Like most things in our home we use the phrase “Waste not, want not” every day so we do much more with parsnips now.
Our Cheap Fruit Cage is Paying Off!
Over this last winter here in the UK we were required by law to keep our lovely chickens either indoors or in fully netted enclosures due to Avian Influenza Restrictions. We bought three 3m x 6m polytunnel frames that we connected up and covered with bird netting. It was much less space than they wouldContinue reading “Our Cheap Fruit Cage is Paying Off!”
For the love of Elders
This week we have been making elderflower cordial and its made me think about the underappreciated Elder tree. We have lots of elder trees on our smallholding and we make maximum use of their flowers and berries in season. There are so many uses for the flowers, berries and wood too it’s baffling that theseContinue reading “For the love of Elders”
The June Cottage Garden
We love our home. It’s not a stately mansion nor large but we constantly look at this beautiful cottage and wonder how we got so lucky to be here. For both of us, the two flower beds at the front give us so much joy. Every month is different but June is by far theContinue reading “The June Cottage Garden”
A Sustainable Closed Loop Eco-System (or The Cycle of Poop!)
We try to live as sustainably as possible. We make use of as many things produced on the smallholding as possible and that includes all of the poop that the chickens produce. We like to call it “Black Gold”. Yes, that’s right….chicken poop is an asset for a sustainable smallholding. We were recently asked whatContinue reading “A Sustainable Closed Loop Eco-System (or The Cycle of Poop!)”