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I’m still picking a lot of purple sprouting from a June sowing, it survived the winter cold – I did have it under netting which does offer some protection.
The same Gardman trays are also available here:
http://www.ironmongeryonline.com/product/Gardman-60-Cell-Plug-Tray-%2528Pack-of-3%2529/6025/
I would avoid spraying chemicals, there is simply no need here – why poison the ground unnecessarily?
Hi Caroline,
This is a good point. I have never seen a vegan book specifically for exclusively UK grown foods. Have you read River Cottage Veg Everyday (Hugh F-W)? It has wonderful recipes for putting plant based foods at the centre of a meal, about 1/3 are vegan and most of the others could easily be.
Raw Food recipe books/websites are inspirational but not local. Perhaps we need to move the UK to a warmer place where we can grow avocados!
One can grow many different types of beans for drying in the UK as well as many nuts – the latter needing more land than most people have though (Fresh nut milks are easy enough to make with the right equipment).
Some ideas here: http://www.organiccatalogue.com/Seeds-Vegetables-Vegetables-A-B-Beans-Drying/c21_22_44_71/index.html
Pumpkin/squash seeds are a good source of protein that can be grown here, as are sunflower seeds. Of course there is a lot of protein in fresh leafy greens.
This isn’t a UK link, but it does give nutritional values for many different plants:
http://www.healthalternatives2000.com/vegetables-nutrition-chart.html
I cover mine, not from the elements but to stop weed seeds growing there, blowing from weedy nearby allotments! I use plastic.
You can buy rolls of brown paper mulch from here, I think it comes in different widths. I have seen a sample, it is much thicker than newspaper.
http://www.bioroll.co.uk/index.html
HTH
They are a wonderful thing to have in the polytunnel, good slug eaters!
It was in the news a lot last week, has been picked up by all sorts of sites if one googles.
The mineral oils (in the inks) are allegedly contaminating the food so I thought that if they were that potent they would not be good for compost heaps. Must admit I have been using mine to start the fire the past few days.
Interesting that I am more worried about my compost heap than eating contaminated food….
Spraying with a strong jet of water sounds fun (do you think a water pistol would work for those with allotments without hoses?) but I would worry about blasting the tops off my brassicas with over enthusiastic spraying! Sadly I am unable to encourage the aid of small birds in this because I have to net my brassicas to protect them from pigeons and deer.
Perhaps one could encourage spiders? Presumably they would love to eat mealy aphid. Are there any other natural predators that could be persuaded to join in?
When gardening under the nets, to squash slugs or tidy up leaves, I always think the whitefly makes the plants look haunted, the puff of powder and small flies when the plants are disturbed is slightly sinister, so spider webs would certainly add to this effect!