Posts under ‘Good Growing Guides’

I am absolutely thrilled with how well the Good Growing Guide has gone down on the blog. And today I’m even more thrilled to tell you that you can buy these lovely little postcards in hard copy for yourself. I received my first batch of cards from the printers this week, and did a little [...]

There’s nothing quite so off-putting as badly cooked cabbage - limp, watery and horribly bitter. But the same is true for courgettes - and we have all suffered at the hands of school catering which murders the flavours of both. Fortunately, F&F has the marvellous Vegalicious blog to combat any cooking disasters. And these Good [...]

Radishes and broccoli are the hare and the tortoise of the vegetable world. While radishes are ready within three weeks of sowing, broccoli requires great patience and a willingness to surrender a bed for an entire season. But come early April, when most vegetables are pathetic little seedlings, broccoli fills that ‘hungry gap’ before harvesting [...]

Parsnips are underrated, and globe artichokes are under-grown. It’s a shame because if you cook them properly, they taste utterly incredible. Once they have successfully germinated, parsnips are completely undemanding, and you can almost forget about them for seven months, save the occasional watering in hot weather. And globe artichokes earn their keep in the [...]

Digging up root vegetables is so exciting: especially when you’re not sure how much buried treasure lies beneath the soil. Pulling out a hoard of golden new potatoes, all honey-flavoured and flaky-skinned, is a marvellous feeling. And, as childish as this might be, I love the bizarre shapes some carrots present when forked out of [...]

Tomatoes and garlic are best of friends in the kitchen. But while garlic settles happily into the soil and asks nothing more, tomatoes crave your attention. There are sideshoots to pinch out, blight to guard against, and fruits which get grumpy if you don’t water properly. Today’s cards demystify the two plants so you can [...]

Not many peas made it into our kitchen this year. The plants cropped heavily, but I ate most of them while working in the garden, or picked a few pods as I was walking to work. They really are worth a little bit of trouble, just for the superior taste. And it’s impossible to find [...]

The first time I tried to plant potatoes was a total disaster.
There I was, crouching over a small trench in the garden, hands covered in mud. I had no idea what I was doing, and no idea how to pick up my book on vegetable growing without smattering the pages with soil. How deep should [...]