Adventures in Food

The Pensford ecosystem/wild/edible garden has been officially accepted onto the Capital Growth scheme member number 0423. This scheme, run by the London Mayor's office and various social and environmental organisations, means I get some free advice and they also sent some chive seeds and an outdoor sign. In the pack I also got a gardening catalogue and some ads for gardening services of various kinds. They are, to be fair, highly relevant and usually discounted, however it does look a bit like a marketing scheme as well as a positive endeavour. My mission is to try to get wildlife and biodiversity up the list of priorities when it comes to growing. Alot of times there may be good wildlife areas being destroyed in order to grow veg and this is not something I would want to happen too much. It would be best to see veg being grown in places where nothing is growing already, so come on London, dig up those car parks and pavements, restore your front garden to earth and life. An...

I harvested a large batch of nettles the other day. After all the hard work a couple of weeks ago the nettles sprang back incredibly fast and are already a foot high again. I made an enormous quantity of nettle puree from the young tops. Did you know nettles contain more iron and more protein than spinach? It is very very rich, and I think better in small doses. They could be used more like a sauce or herb than a main vegetable. So I froze a lot of it as I doubt we can manage to get through it all. My friend Anna reports a French recipe she tried recently that uses the nettles in a flan, with great results which I must try. I also collected abundant amounts of Goog King Henry which has sprouted up on the cleared ground, and some dandelion leaves, for a salad. There is a huge dock doing well and the herbs I've planted are taking too, the feverfew and calamint are seeming happy under their protective sheeps fleece mulch which works extremely well now that the foxes have lost interes...