Author Archives: Steve Jones

How to pollinate vegetables

Pollinating my cucumber plant in my greenhouse

I have been asked the question how to pollinate vegetables quite a lot lately so here’s a post to try to explain the ways I’ve had success with pollination and to show the best techniques as I see them. The Best Way To Pollinate Vegetables The best way to pollinate vegetables is of course, the natural way. What is the natural way? Well by allowing Bees and Butterflies to gain access to your vegetables and letting them do what they do. Which is to gather nectar and in the process as they fly from flower to flower they spread pollen… → Read More

Dealing With Perennial Weeds

Bindweed

If you are a regular visitor to growing-guides.co.uk you will know that I grow organically as much as I am able, but I have been having problems dealing with perennial weeds. So this post is in a way an admission of defeat as any thing else. Dealing With Perennial Weeds Most annual weeds can be dug or pulled up and as long as they are not in flower they can be added to the compost bin. Thier roots are usually shallow and they spread by seed distribution so as long as you remove them early enough they don’t become too… → Read More

How To Freeze Broad Beans

Just got back from the allotment with two full buckets of Broad Beans. Obviously I won’t use that many Broad Beans at once so I need to store them, so I thought I’d share with you how to freeze Broad Beans. How To Freeze Broad Beans There are many different schools of thought and techniques for keeping Broad beans,from drying them bottling them but for me the most convenient way is to freeze them. This leads us to our first choice, whether to blanche them or not. Blanching is the term used to describe the process of par-boiling the Beans… → Read More

Poached Egg Plant Companion Planting

Companion Planting with Poached Egg Plants

There has been a trend recently of people wanting to fight insect infestations by organic/natural methods with the emphasis on companion planting and using Poached Egg Plants in particular. The problem with that as far as I can see is that there doesn’t seem to be much relevant information out there so I thought it was about time to dedicate a post on the subject. What Is A Poached Egg Plant The Poached Egg Plant (Latin name Limnanthes Douglasii) is an annual plant with open flowers that are white around the outside with a yellow middle that resembles a poached… → Read More

How To Save Seed

How to save seed Now days vegetable seeds are relatively cheap to buy, but sometimes you want to have the squash that someone has given you and was particularly tasty but you are unaware of its name so this is how to save seed. you will need, A Jar A saucer A sieve A container/bag Step one – extracting seed Take the squash or tomato you wish to save seed from and extract some seeds. Step two – soaking seeds Next place the extracted seed into a jar and add just enough water to cover the seeds. Replace the lid… → Read More

How To Grow Carrots

It’s not very hard to learn how to grow carrots – simply put: Place carrot seed in growing medium and let nature do it’s thing. But for those wanting a more in depth guide to help you to grow carrots more successfully, here is a comprehensive article dedicated to growing carrots. How To Grow Carrots From Seed First you need to check the temperature of your soil, carrots need at least six degrees centigrade to germinate. You need to make sure your soil has not had any fertiliser/manure in it within the last 6 months as this will deform the crop. You also need to ensure the… → Read More

How To Stop Runner Beans Drying Out

runner beans

If like me you can’t always get to water your plot you need as many tricks as you can find to stop your plants from losing too much moisture, so this post is called how to stop runner beans drying out but this technique works equally well for squashes, tomatoes etc.For more information on Growing squashes click the link. It’s important that runner beans don’t dry out because when runner beans do get dry they get stringy. Step one – How to stop runner beans drying out The first thing to do is to dig a trench roughly a… → Read More

A Moment Of Serendipity

Young rhubarb (serendipity)

Serendipity – A Definition According to dictionary.com Serendipity is defined as “an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident”. Put plainly I would say it’s being in the right place at the right time. Why a post on Serendipity? Well a couple of weeks ago I was at my allotment when a Serendipitous ( if that’s even a word ) moment occurred and I would like to share it here. Working Hard I had been planning to turn my current pallet based compost bins into a rhubarb bed since last year when I added three plastic compost bins to my… → Read More

How To Make A Seed Tape – Step By Step Guide To Making A Seed Tape

Making your own seed tapes is a great idea as I never really understood why people would spend money on something so easy to create yourself. Why make a seed tape? Well picture yourself on your allotment or in your garden about to sow your carrot seeds or some other fine, light seeds and it’s a windy day. Firstly the seed is small and hard to control and so the correct sowing distance is hard to obtain, and secondly, the fine seed will blow every which way in the wind. Seed tapes are easy to make and are very inexpensive…. → Read More

Air pruning

Air pruning pot

Every where I look lately there seems to be a reference to Air pruning, so I thought I’d look in to it. After some hours of research it appears to be a good idea. So what’s it all about? Well basically, its about letting the roots of your pot plants come into contact with the air which will “burn” them. Thus stopping plants becoming root bound. What happens with pot plants is that over time the roots reach the side of the pot and then start growing around the inside of the pot eventually strangling the plant and killing it…. → Read More