THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Growing Fruit
Growing fruit is ideal when you want your own produce. It is low maintenance, tastes great and because you are growing …
Garden Design Trends
At the start of the year Gardens Illustrated gave over a few pages to garden designers to say what they thought garden design trends would be in 2014. Not all are trends, some are just ideas. But what good ideas… Give more help to the people who have to maintain the garden. (Very important! The designer may have the input to get the garden going, but what happens next? The act of garden design is a continual process and the gardener must be involved from day one…!) Large planters – as big as possible. (Absolutely. The more container gardening we do, the more …
Gardening Jobs August
What are the gardening jobs to do in August? 1) Make hay while the sun shines (you can always do this by scything…) 2) Prune wisteria. 3) Deadhead your dahlias. 4) Be water-wise (don’t water your lawn, use harvested rainwater instead of tap water. If you haven’t harvested any rainwater, try somewhere like Harrod Horticultural for ideas.) 5) Start thinking about ordering bulbs for planting in Autumn – we are doing a garden design in Upminster, Essex at the moment and will be adding lots of daffodils – cannot wait! 6) Use up your courgettes – put them in chocolate cake, barbeque them, …
Essex Bees (Part 3)
In part 3 of our interview with Richard of Essex Bees, he offers us reasons for growing your own food. You can check out part 2 ‘downshifting’, while the section of interview about bees and how he started as a beekeeper can be read here in part 1. Definitely worth your full attention! Why grow your own food? Next time you sit down to a meal, look at the packaging to see where everything came from – it will improve your knowledge of world geography! Eating seasonally and with locally produced, non-processed produce is arguably better for you and also supports local businesses. …