Heirloom Gardening, Food and Other Thoughts
The second podcast segment I recorded for the Alternative Kitchen Garden on heirloom gardening is available for download.
This week’s podcast also included a segment done by Rebsie of Daughter of the Soil about historical beetroot varieties. A really facinating segment, and very well done! For me this is also my first time hearing the voice behind the blog I’ve been reading for years now.
Also featured was Madeleine who talked about preserving herbs, also a really interesting segment!
I visited Lieven’s garden in Belgium yesterday. Above you can see one of his self made raspberry/blackberry crosses (sometimes called a Logan berry). This one is called Hilke.
Lieven is growing many interesting plants, including many soft fruits, pumpkins, lettuces, broccoli, kales, potatoes, garlics, onions, other alliums and many other plants. Many of them he has made himself, others found in wild places or given to him by friends or visitors of his garden.
It was an exciting visit, and most of his plants I had never seen before. I took many pictures and I am still trying to figure out the best way to publish as many of them as possible on the Internet.
Steve recently sent me an email to tell me about his new blog on Square Foot Gardening. I don’t know very much about SFG, but the idea has been around for a while, and many people have good things to say about it. I will be watching his blog with interest, and hoping to learn a thing or two!
It’s not often I get to announce a new blog that at least in part is mine! Together with Rebsie of Daughter of the Soil, we have created a new joint blog, Root Cause. Be sure to add it to your bookmarks and RSS feeds! Please visit now and have a look at our first post concerning Perennial Onions.
I don’t know about the future, but for now our emphasis is on things people do themselves. Many people have a blog they use to gather information, create a journal, have a platform in which to express their opinion, talk about products they like using or just to write about things they think are important. In the beginning at least, we are trying to offer something that is none of those things, but rather emphasizes things that people are doing themselves and want to talk about.
Rebsie and I are both gardeners, and plan to share with you what we are growing. In particular Rebsie is an amateur plant breeder, and will almost certainly be showing off some of her creations. I hope we can find people who are raising animals, farming, cooking, building things, working on self-sufficiency projects and anything else people do themselves. Of particular interest would be things of a heirloom or heritage nature, or things related to biodiversity.
Are you doing something that you would like to write about? Maybe you don’t want to go to the trouble of having your own blog, and would just like to write something one off? Maybe you have your own blog, but would like an excuse to post somewhere else as a way to promote it and interact with other bloggers? Whatever your reasons, if you would like to make a guest post on this new blog, please get in touch with us!
In the Garden is a new heirloom gardening blog. They have a list of seeds to trade. Not all of their seeds are heirlooms, but many seem to be. They have a lot of interesting looking Asian vegetables.
Who would have thought of zucchini (courgette) as a winter vegetable!
