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Grow it Yourself - February


GIY Seed Pots
Author: Michael Kelly
And so it begins. Another season starts with the determined act of seed sowing in the potting shed. A bag of compost opened and tipped out on the sowing bench. Cold black plastic pots filled with even colder blacker compost. Seed labels lined up awaiting a scrawl of information. Seed packets fished out from my big box of tricks and ripped open to reveal their bounty. It's just tomatoes, aubergines and peppers today so five tiny little seeds are placed gently on the surface of each pot (one for each variety I will sow and 17 pots in all).
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Grow It Yourself - January


Compost
Author: Michael Kelly
I reckon we could do worse then to make our 2016 resolution all about paying more attention to soil. If that sounds odd, bear in mind that healthy soils are the cornerstone of life on earth - not only the foundation for food, fuel and medical products, but also essential to our ecosystems, playing a key role in the carbon cycle, storing and filtering water, and improving resilience to floods and droughts.
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Grow It Yourself - December


Brussels Sprouts - Michael Kelly
Author: Michael Kelly
Ok, so here's a confession. In almost ten years of growing I've never managed to successfully grow that quintessential Christmas crop, the Brussels sprout. This has been somewhat irksome as I am a fan of sprouts and generally speaking, really in to the idea of vegetables that grow well over winter.
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Grow It Yourself - November


Garlic in Winter
Author: Michael Kelly
Being a contrary sort I have always sown my garlic in the spring time, and it's an approach that has served me well over the years. In fact, it has worked so well that I never really saw the point of winter garlic sowing and I always felt very clever indeed for holding off until spring. This year however, I got caught out by mild spring weather. Garlic needs a prolonged cold snap (4-8 weeks of sub 10 degrees Celsius) to yield nice big tasty bulbs, and the spring weather this year didn't supply the conditions needed. The result? Puny little garlic bulbs and a dollop of humble pie.
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Grow It Yourself - September


Mick Kelly
Author: Michael Kelly
This week I spent some time at either end of the food growing cycle: at one end, up to my neck in compost, turning the heaps at the end of the garden; at the other, up to my neck in a mountain of pears in the kitchen, turning them in to a pickle for the winter larder. When it comes down to it, you have to be willing to invest time at both ends of the cycle, if your food growing is to thrive.
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Grow It Yourself - August


GIY Onions Drying
Author: Michael Kelly
After a couple of quiet weeks it’s time to get busy in the veg patch again, this time with harvesting. Our onions are ready to pick so it’s a job for a quiet Saturday, if the weather plays ball. Gathering onions and getting them ready for winter storage is one of the bigger harvesting jobs of the year, but I love it.
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Grow It Yourself - July


GIY Green Beans
Author: Michael Kelly
French beans are, I think, one of the most underrated of vegetables. Of all the legume family, they are my favourite to eat, more desirable to my mind than runner beans, broad beans and perhaps even peas.
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Grow It Yourself - June


Carrots
Author: Michael Kelly
It’s hard to believe that we’re now in the sixth month of the year already, and that the longest day of the year is a mere three weeks away. At the risk of getting a slap in the head, let me say this much: it will be Christmas before we know it!
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Grow It Yourself - May


GIY Seed Trays
Author: Michael Kelly
There is a wonderful Ted Talk by New York-based chef Dan Barbour about a small farm in Spain that produces foie gras humanely (without the force feeding that the product is often lambasted for). Raising his geese in a natural environment, farmer Eduardo Sousa re-discovered that if geese are allowed to forage at will, they will naturally gorge themselves in the autumn to build up fat for the winter. The result? A ‘natural’ foie gras. The important word there is “re-discovered” because there is nothing new in this.
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Grow It Yourself - April


Michael Kelly
Author: Michael Kelly
A few months ago, I was giving a talk about growing things (as you do) to a GIY group and was discussing the growing of spuds when a woman put up her hand to comment. She told us about a tradition in her family when the first new spuds of the season were being harvested. Her grandmother would always take a small batch of new spuds and put them in a biscuit tin, throw in a small covering of soil, put a lid on top and then bury the tin in the garden.
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