THE MODERN MINT BLOG

Jul30

Unusual Vegetable Garden

Yesterday Modern Mint were sent these photos of an unusual vegetable garden, from a reader of the blog in Oxford. We wanted to share these pictures with you as we think the idea is absolutely wonderful…!

This is what she had to say…

“We harvested the first courgettes last week and the first tomatoes can be seen on the vine! First handful of beans were harvested yesterday! This is so so great – and we got everything for free, scavenging in skips and on the roadside!

Hope your well and keep up the great site and the super blog. Really enjoy reading it!”

 

Before - just a parking space...
Before – just a parking space…

 

 

 

After - a productive veg patch!
After – a productive veg patch!

 

 

Unusual Vegetable Garden
Unusual Vegetable Garden

 

aubergine

 

Great yes? An unused car parking space in the city becomes a productive garden… it almost has a touch of guerrilla gardening about it…

Tomato!
Tomato!

 

beans

We hope you are growing vegetables and able to harvest your own produce. We always love to see photos of what you can do so please do contact us if you have any unusual vegetable garden ideas to share!

For seeds you should be growing – visit Real Seeds – they, along with Joy Larkcom (mentioned below) are the best resource for all things ‘vegetable garden’. Each year, every one of our clients gets given seeds from us that we have got from Real Seeds. Why? Because they do the most unusual vegetable garden seeds and are completely open about how they operate.

Last of all, for advice on growing your own look no further than these books by Joy Larkcom, the Queen of Vegetable Growers…

Grow Your Own Vegetables

The Organic Salad Garden

Creative Vegetable Gardening

Oriental Vegetables

How did she become the Queen of the Vegetable Garden? Her memoir will tell you…

Just Vegetating: A Memoir

Feb10

Why I Wrote The Book Modern Topiary

I have written this book, Modern Topiary, because I wanted a collation of useful information that would give people access to everything they need to know in order to start making topiary. Topiary is an amazing (and niche) line of work to follow – amazing because it offers up opportunities to travel all over the world, making gardens, meeting people… but also, the work is intensely physical, hands-on, yet requires creative thinking in order to solve the puzzle of how to make the shapes you want. This mixture of the craft and the art is what I love the most …

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Jan30

Buxus the Norfolk Terrier In Modern Topiary Book

This is Buxus, our Norfolk Terrier, who I acknowledge in the acknowledgments of the book of Modern Topiary. The book of Modern Topiary can be read, for free, here. There you go. Buxus the dog on ‘doorstep duty’ at a friend’s house in Edinburgh. For those asking what he looked like!

Jan30

What People Think Of Modern Topiary, The Book

Yesterday I put out the book – Modern Topiary – that I have spent the last six years writing. Download for free a pdf of Modern Topiary here. And what seems amazing to me, is that not only have people actually been reading it, but then responding to it. So below are a number of comments I have been sent from those who read it last night, and this morning…. “Brilliant read, exactly the right amount of info to take in and digest.” Rachel, a gardener “I love your book, the advice is so straightforward and your writing is so …

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