Goji Goji Go!

My plant of the week :) and why you should grow them ...

This is another of my £2 supermarket 'twigs' - the Goji Berry, occasionally known as Wolfberry or Duke of Argyll's tea.  Residing in a middle sized pot and parked just inside the shade edge of the lime trees in the Car Park garden, it has (over several years) grown to be a single lengthy arching stem with two straggly branches, a few leaves and no fruit.  Pretty pointless, I'm sure you'd agree.

Last autumn however, it wheedled its way back - not so much into my affections as into whatever piques my interest.  It bore fruit.  Or rather, a fruit.  One tiny glowing red berry shining through the autumn gloom.  So, naturally, I was expecting greater things from the plant this year.

Catching up with myself

I feel an explanation is warranted.

This year, with the Blog of the Year winner’s trophy sitting on a nearby shelf at home, I’ve been shamefully neglectful of putting time aside to write.  Sometimes, the muse just disappears or there’s little to tell; but this time I actually have a few good reasons for my absence here.

15 Practical and beautiful ideas from The Skip Garden

While writing about the imminent closure of The Skip Garden in Kings Cross, I felt a twang of nostalgia looking back through the seven years of photos that I'd taken during my visits.  It's a garden that I'm familiar with, and it hasn't changed much over the past four years, but I still get a buzz of excitement as I head towards the gates.

There's always something new to see, small or large - whether it's bird boxes made during a workshop, different crops in the skips, fresh ceramics, or a parquet floor patio made from scaffolding boards. Totally inspiring, unexpectedly beautiful.

This year the chicken house/coop had gone, in its place stood an intriguing incomplete new structure and newly built empty wooden planters waiting to be filled. I assume the planters were destined for a local business as the gardeners are hands on in the local community. There were also several planters of herbs by the kitchen patio - I love a herb patch and looked to see what was thriving in the sunshine. And immediately added it to my list of practical and beautiful ideas from The Skip Garden that I'm sharing below.

Return to The Skip Garden

I, We and The Planet.

Those five powerful words underpin the work of Global Generation, the charity bringing youth, community and enterprise together in London. Why am I writing about this? Well, with everything that's happening in the world today, those words seem particularly relevant - and I visited their flagship Skip Garden in Kings Cross last week.

I make an annual pilgrimage to the Skip Garden - it's a short walk from where I have my car MOT done and the kitchen café serves a fine coffee and freshly-made food. But it's all about to change, again.

How to use fresh calendula to make a soothing oil

Let me say right now that I've only just made this for the first time because it sounded so lovely. Calendula (pot marigold) has so many uses; not only is it a cheerful, pretty flower with edible petals, it's also a good companion plant in the garden deterring hornworm (the caterpillar that may eat/destroy tomato plants) and it's known to be beneficial for skin complaints.  Combine it with the moisturising and antioxidant qualities of olive oil (or sweet almond oil) and you have an effective natural remedy for cuts, grazes, sunburn or for soothing dry skin.

Ranunculus: A buttercup by any name

I'm a real sucker for those bags of bulbs that drop into the shops in autumn. When there's daffodils, tulips, grape hyacinths and anemones to look forward to in spring, the winter months almost dwindle away.  It's the promise of all that colour after the monochrome of winter.

Beginner's guide to: potting on tomato seedlings

I was deliberately late in sowing tomato seeds this year (hellooo urban flat, shady interiors, minimal windowsill space). A good decision as it turns out because all seeds germinated leaving me with 63 tomato seedlings to find room for. (Now 58 as I culled a few.)

So I had 5 or 6 seedlings in each small 9cm pot that needed to be potted on into individual pots. Doing this gives each plant more root room to grow and should be done when the seedling has its first true leaves. (Plants that aren't potted on quickly enough will adapt to the smaller environment and never reach their full potential.)