In the northern hemisphere Spring is coming.  The snowdrops and crocuses have in many places already burst out into flower.  Maybe this has set your mind working, and you’re wondering what to do with that spare plot of earth at the back of your house.  Well how about a vegetable garden?

Vegetable gardening for flavour

I’m not sure whether it really is true, in any scientifically provable way, that my home-grown veggies from the kitchen garden taste better than what my wife buys in the local store, but I know it feels that way.  There’s certainly something special about eating what you’ve grown yourself.  What’s more, you know it’s fresh; you picked it yourself just an hour or so ago.  And if you have children in the household they will know that food does not come from a plastic bag but from God’s good earth.

How was it grown?

Personally I’m not opposed to chemicals.  Why?  Because everything we eat is chemical.  Even the cleanest air we breath is chemical.  The freshest, most unpolluted water we drink is chemical.  The materials of our bodies are chemical. The green leaves of a plant are chemical.  It’s not that chemicals are bad in themselves, otherwise everything around us would be bad, but it’s a question of what kinds of chemicals.  Plants need food, and they often need protection from pests and diseases. When you grow your food yourself you know exactly what has been used to fertilise the soil, what has been used to guard the growing crops from insect damage and plant disease.  The uncertainties are removed.  You know what you’re giving your family to eat.

Good food and good exercise

For many of us our modern lifestyle does not make it easy to keep our bodies in good condition.  Obesity and slack muscles are all too common these days.  Half an hour a day looking after a kitchen garden can make a major difference to a person’s physical fitness.  The variety of movement involved exercises many different muscular groups including legs, arms, back and more.  It won’t be long before you start to feel the difference.

So why not?

Whether you’re looking for more flavourful food, trying to save the planet or aspiring after a better-toned body, a vegetable garden could do you good. Spring is coming. It’s time to be clearing the earth and sowing the seed. You’ll not regret it.

Tags: Kitchen Garden, Spring, vegetable garden

Today I was in several city-centre bookshops and noticed that one of them in particular was displaying vegetable garden books in a big way, so I thought I’d follow suit here. Below I’m showing some of what appear to be the most popular kitchen garden titles here in the UK.

I’ve put three of our British authors and TV gardening presenters (Carol Klein, Alan Titchmarsh and Sarah Raven) on the first line of the Amazon.com display as these books appear to be most readily available outside the UK.

Happy reading, and happy vegetable growing.

- David Murray -

I’ve been missing from this blog for some time, having been feeling none too well for several months and struggling to keep the various strands of business going. However, I’m now back and have recently been working on a web site dealing with one of my life-long passions - the English Lake District (to my mind the most beautiful corner of England). As we now live more than a hundred and fifty miles from the Cumbrian lakes, I thought of another substantial lake nearby - Rutland Water - so I’ve started to include something about lakes elsewhere in England and have given the site the name: “England’s Lakes“.

So what has this to do with gardening? Well, I thought that I was fairly up to date with books about the Lakes, but yesterday I came across one that I’d missed and as it’s relevant to this blog I thought it would provide a suitable subject for my return.

The title is, Gardens of the Lake District, by Tim Longville, published by Frances Lincoln, 2007 [ISBN: 0711227136] and it’s a book not to be missed. This beautiful region of the country, visited annually by hundreds of thousands from all over the world to see the lakes and mountains that so stimulated poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge contains some magnificent gardens, many of which open to the public.

If you’re visiting England from abroad, or live in another part of this country, make sure you plan a trip to the Lakes - and use this book to help decide which gardens you’re going to visit while there. If you can’t get there in person, then the book will transport you there from your armchair.

If you click on the book image above you’ll be taken Biblio, an international network of online book dealers and you can check out what they have available.

Until next time,

- David -

ps. Don’t forget to take a look at my new “England’s Lakes” site.

It’s several weeks since I added an article to the main Gardening-Notes site. In the limited time available I’ve been thinking more about the new fuchsia site, which I hope to be ready very shortly. However, today there’s a new article on starting a new herb garden. We have a few more herb-related articles in preparation, so look out for more. Our main bookselling site also has a good variety of titles on both growing herbs and cooking with herbs.

- David -

Returning readers will have noticed that there’s recently been something of a gap in postings on this blog. Partly that’s because of time pressures away from the computer, and also what little time I have been able to spend on the gardening components of our sites has been devoted to adding notes on additional varieties to our new fuchsia site - which I hope will be ready for launch at the latest by mid-January.

When it comes you’ll be able to look up notes on individual fuchsia varieties, with photos where I have them available; those for which I don’t currently have photos will need to stay confined to black and white text until next flowering season. I’m hoping to have around 40-50 varieties on the first version, with more being added as time goes on.

You’ll be able to find books about fuchsias and links to sellers of fuchsia plants. There will also be articles about fuchsias from recent issues of newspapers and magazines from around the world, and more.

We’ve one or two other surprises up our sleeves as well, but you’ll have to wait for those.

Meanwhile, it’s Christmas eve today. Wherever you are, if you’re on holiday this week, have a great time. For ourselves we’ll be rejoicing at the memory of the birth of our wonderful Saviour.

Best wishes,

- David -

ps. Why not take a quick look at the current fuchsia book pages on our bookselling site, BrunleaBooks. These will be updated and expanded when the new specialist site is launched, but meanwhile there are several interesting items to be found there.