Winter has started fitfully, just like the previous two. Mild, drizzly, calm and cloudy conditions have encouraged moulds, but delayed sowing peas. Spells of cold, dry, windy conditions have spurred leaf drop on summer crops, like winged yam.
Category: Sustainability
Nicotine And Old Roses
Food security alert: Neonicotinoid pesticides, like Confidor, are creating a dangerous world where caterpillars are becoming poison bird bait, where bees and migratory birds ‘forget’ how to navigate and bees and other pollinators are becoming suicide junkies.
Want Safer Streets, More Bees and Good Food? Grow Tamarind Trees, not African Tulip Trees
I’ve just made Dulce de Tamarindo from tamarind pods, a mouthwatering Mexican sweet that’s guaranteed to stimulate your tastebuds. What could link safer streets, more bees and good food? Here’s a blog on sustainable urban forest management. Let’s start with an end product before making the case to ‘grow me instead’. There is a greater demand…
Food With A Future
Whatever they said to you at school, farming is the oldest profession.
Looking Back: Autumn Open Day at Bellis
An Open Day is a great way to get feedback from gardeners on what you’re growing and how you’re doing.
Autumn Open Day at Bellis
Every time I open my garden there is something to celebrate about organic gardening and seed saving.
In Production Today – May
Warm, humid, sunny conditions have allowed most crops to grow well.
In Production Today – March
Conditions have been perfect for plants that can cope with hot, humid, calm, showery conditions.
Book Review: ‘The Thrifty Gardener’ By Millie Ross, ABC Books
“Building the garden you want with whatever you’ve got”
In Production Today – February 2013
Productivity is gradually recovering after ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald.
Seeking True Cardamom
Can’t find genuine cardamom plants, but want its fresh flavour in your cooking? Grow your own.
Glyphosate, The World’s Favourite Herbicide
Glyphosate-based herbicides are bee-killing global pollutants of groundwater, rivers and surface water. More recently glyphosate has been detected in rain. The latest research reveals that glyphosate damages the beneficial bacteria in the gut of the honeybee, making them prone to to deadly infections. Previous studies have shown that pesticides such as neonicotinoids cause harm to bees,…