Rainforests in Newcastle, vanishing brassicas and winter squash
Sally Nex Blog
by sallynex
10M ago
Hello everyone! How has your gardening week been? I am writing this from the other end of the country: I have run away to Newcastle upon Tyne. Just for a weekend – I wouldn’t abandon my garden for long, after all – but I have dropped in to see my daughter’s graduation art exhibition, and to have a little wander around a very fine city. It is elderflower season! Cordial recipe coming soon… I’m afraid I can’t bring you pictures of the art installation, much as I’d like to, as it was all in the dark – but it was a beautiful, mesmerising film which set out to capture the essence of the Welsh tempe ..read more
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Peas, apple blossom and self-sown chard
Sally Nex Blog
by sallynex
11M ago
Hello! How has your gardening week been? Mine has been mostly full of light and warmth, bar a few spectacularly thunderous downpours (mercifully short-lived). I’ve been gardening in a t-shirt with the sun on my arms, delighting in everything from the billowing cow parsley in the hedgerows to the brilliant green flush spreading across the countryside and the ecstatic chorus of birdsong in the hedgerows. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: this is quite my favourite time of the year. Ramsons (wild garlic) That said: it is starting to feel as if I am beating back the encroaching undergrow ..read more
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Dandelions, Brussels sprouts and new potatoes
Sally Nex Blog
by sallynex
11M ago
Hello to you all and I hope you’ve had a great gardening week! I am feeling the panic rising now as May strides ever onwards and there are still seedlings un-pricked-out, seeds unsown and pots unfilled. But, the calming voice in my head tells me, there is still time. Spring is still with us, it is cow parsley season in the hedgerows and all is well with the world. English bluebells in my rewilded strip I hope your lawns are bursting with flowers too now that No Mow May is also upon us: in this week’s premium content I’ve been talking about how to manage a monthly mowing routine to bring your g ..read more
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Beans, sunflowers and not enough hours in the day
Sally Nex Blog
by sallynex
11M ago
Hello to you all! I hope your gardening week has gone well. My veg patch is filling up steadily as all those seeds I sowed so hopefully back at the beginning of March under cover have miraculously germinated and grown (why do I always find this such a surprise?) enough to make their way through my ersatz coldframe setup and into the ground outdoors. Meanwhile direct-sown seedlings are popping up all over too, as are the weeds, and it’s feeling like I’m in the thick of it again. Love it. Filling up fast… So here we are very nearly in May already! This is actually my all-time favourite month of ..read more
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Trees, mountains and rivers
Sally Nex Blog
by sallynex
1y ago
Hello! This week’s newsletter is a bit of a departure from the usual – literally and metaphorically, as I’ve left my little veg patch behind me far to the south, and I am now in rainforest country. Coed Llennyrch, Snowdonia Not, of course, your standard-issue tropical rainforest (I wish!) but the rather more understated, and I believe considerably rarer temperate kind. I’m with my eldest daughter on a bit of a jolly to Snowdonia in North Wales this weekend, as she’s attempting to recreate the feeling of being in an ancient temperate rainforest inside a gallery in Newcastle for her Fine Art deg ..read more
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Mini caulis, red cabbages and five year old broccoli
Sally Nex Blog
by sallynex
1y ago
Hello again! Have you had a good week? I do hope so. I am at that point of dissonance: the mismatch between the spangle of spring flowers scattering heart-lifting flecks of colour across banks and borders everywhere you look, and the frankly bleak weather of very early spring. Rumour has it there will be snow again this week. I have early seedlings to look after, and I need warmth and light: but both are, for now at least, in short supply. Crocus waiting for the sunshine A big welcome to everyone who’s joined the Greenery community this week, and particularly to those of you who have upgraded ..read more
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Tomatoes, a new book, and community woods
Sally Nex Blog
by sallynex
1y ago
Hello! How has your week been? I expect you, like me, have mostly spent it watching the world wake up: there is growth everywhere now, in the seedlings you’ve been sowing on windowsills and in propagators, and in the first of the spring wildflowers shyly opening all over the garden like little pale lights flickering on to lift the gloom of winter. You can smell the spring in the air: and it is at last getting warmer. Perhaps a little too warm, to be honest: these days you don’t know whether to feel happy or really quite scared when you hear you can look forward to a balmy 12-15°C (55-60°F) by ..read more
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Bees, tomatoes and marigolds
Sally Nex Blog
by sallynex
1y ago
Hello again! Here we are in mid-February already and I’m getting that all too familiar feeling of the year speeding up – January just drags and drags, then you hit February, you start sowing a few seeds and suddenly you look up and it’s spring already and half your jobs are still on the must-do list. Early bee food I heard the first buzz of a foraging bee this morning while I was out cutting back the hedgerows. Bees are not just for summer, and some rise earlier than others, taking advantage of the snowdrops opening everywhere now in little avalanches tumbling down the hedgerow banks. I didn’t ..read more
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Daffodils, chillies and turbo-charged onions
Sally Nex Blog
by sallynex
1y ago
Hello everyone! Hope you’ve had a good week. Have you been enjoying my little flurry of posts to launch the Totally Tomatoes growalong? I have really loved sharing with you the first steps into this season – it’s early still, but things are definitely shifting up a gear. There are snowdrops in the hedgerows, winter aconites peeping out from under my still-sleeping lavenders and I have two whole clumps of daffodils up on the bank flowering their heads off. A little uneasy about that last, as they’ve never flowered so early before, but they’re nonetheless a really welcome splash of sunshiny colo ..read more
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Totally tomatoes: Which tom?
Sally Nex Blog
by sallynex
1y ago
OK here we go! As promised, the first of five daily posts to celebrate the launch of the subscriber-only section of Greenery, and kick off our first focussed growalong with a deep dive into everything to do with growing tomatoes. As we go along, do join in and share how you’re getting on with your own tomatoes: show off your successes, and lament your setbacks – we’re all here for you! I’m also really open to suggestions as to different topics to cover: if there’s something you’re burning to know about growing toms just drop me a line in the comments below and I will make sure it goes on the ..read more
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