Category Archives: how tos

Gardening How To’s Archive. Here are all of my gardening how to guides.

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

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

Kale Crisps And How To Make Them

Kale

One of my friends told me how to make these the other week and after trying them I must say just how nice they are. I’ll definitely be making these again. Kale Crisps Ingredients All you need is:- Kale Olive oil Salt Method Cut the middle vein out of the leaves of Kale , then cut the pieces into bite size lengths, then place them on a microwavable plate, sprinkle with olive oil, add a touch of sea salt then microwave on full power for three and a half minutes. Pat with kitchen paper to dry excess oil and enjoy…. → Read More

How To Make Comfrey Tea [Organic Comfrey Plant Food Guide]

How I make my own comfrey tea

What Is Comfrey? Comfrey is a herb that back in the middle ages was used by healers for all manner of conditions including acne, varicose veins and many others but its alternative name of “knit bone” gives a clue as to its main use back in the day, to speed up the healing of broken bones. Well I can’t tell you if any of that is true, all I can tell you is that as a plant food comfrey tea is second to none. Comfrey has a tap root (like a dandelion root) which penetrates deep into the sub soil,… → Read More

How to improve your soil

So basically, good compost equals good soil.There is no secret to making compost just a few simple rules. Firstly site your bin on the soil this is important because you need to allow the worms access to your bin because basically worms create compost, they are the ultimate recycle factory. The worms eat your waste and the waste that they produce is compost so compost is worm poo. Not only worms but other insects and micro-organisms etc.. found in soil that feed on decomposing plant material. The bin should be sited so that it is exposed to at least six hours… → Read More