Ruth grows these decorative bottle gourds. When dried you can cut them in half and use them as scoops for dried foods. We have a couple in use for scooping out the chicken food. If you don’t cut them in half you can use them as rattles as the seeds shake inside.

However I managed to get home before the sun went down and although the family were out, Ruth had left some dinner for me. I sat in the evening sun enjoying an omelette, roll and pasta salad. In the salad were caulifower florets – from the wonderful Winter Roscoff cauliflower variety.  These plants sat there all winter and at one point looked like the frost had got them… but all of a sudden last
week the wonderful flowers emerged! Highly recommended.

Winter Roscoff cauliflower

The field is in a stunning spot on the Sheep’s Head – so here’s a short video as a reminder of the day.

It’s amazing that any of the crop survived the summer we’ve had – so hats off to everyone involved and best of luck with getting the rest of the harvest in (the big field is to be harvested by combine) and drying it.

[Edit - Madeline has a great video here...]

The idea is simple. There are many older or busier people who have gardens they struggle to look after but which they like to see being used productively, and there are many younger and more able people who would like to grow food, but have no access to land. In effect, Garden Share acts as a dating agency, matching the two together.

The Totnes Garden Share Scheme on the BBC » Transition Culture

I’d be interested to hear of anyone setting up similar initiatives in Ireland.

Groundbreaking projects at the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place in Sussex may have to be axed because of a £100m shortfall.

The money is needed over the next 10 years to maintain its work to store rare seeds from the whole plant world.

BBC NEWS | Seed bank ‘running out of funds’

If the Millennium Seed Bank was a financial bank, governments would be falling over themselves to give it the money… (via Fluffius Muppetus)

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From small acorns…

There are lots of reasons why I wanted to start writing this – reasons that will be covered in future posts – but a particular motivation for starting now is that I’m about to begin a new garden. I’ve grown a few radishes as a kid and had a few lettuces in the back garden over the years, but I’ve never seriously spent time tending a garden and growing a good proportion of my own food.

Why am I starting to garden now? Where is the garden? What will be on this website? All questions to be answered over forthcoming posts.

For now it’s ‘time to get growing’…