In a Vase on Monday: Thick Cut Marmalade

I started growing flowers for cutting on my allotment over 10 years ago. I was really interested in where the food we ate came from, and I had started to wonder about the provenance of the flowers at my local florist and the ones in buckets at the supermarket. The more I read the more I realised growing my own would be better for the planet – many shop-bought flowers have a significant carbon footprint because they’ve been grown abroad and there are issues around the chemicals used to grow them, the demands made on local water supplies and the working conditions of the growers and pickers. I also preferred a certain style of flower arrangement, something that looked like it had been picked from the garden, with a looser more natural feel.

I am probably doing the Duchess a great injustice by implying she is a floozy, as I don’t know her well enough, but when you are such a lovely shade of deep purply blue that you become the focus of a vase on Monday, then perhaps you need to be big enough to allow people to take liberties with your reputation.

Dive deep into Connecticut State Flower and How to Grow It. Learn facts, growth habits, caring, and much more about this amazing flower with this quick and easy guide.

Growing Poinsettias from Cuttings and keeping them in pots indoors is the best way to add a Christmasy vibe to your home all year round! Let’s have a look at how to grow and maintain it successfully!

One of the things Ryan and I like to do is sit and make a cup of tea in the garden, for which we use a Kelly Kettle that can quickly boil water using very little fuel (even in inclement weather). We’ll enjoy it even more when the garden is finished and we have somewhere to sit!

We know that mustard has been a common ingredient in European food since the late 14th century. Prior to that we know that it was used medicinally, with its benefits mentioned by both Pliny and Pythagoras, and we think the Romans are responsible for spreading white mustard throughout Europe. A ‘hot’ plant, it has also long been considered an aphrodisiac.

Header image: Purple microbial mats offer clues to how ancient life functioned. Pieter Visscher, CC BY-ND

Not long ago, I was summing up our first two months with the AeroGarden, our ‘space garden’. I noted that, although it’s a really good way to start small batches of seedlings for the larger Hydroponicum, in its seed-starting configuration the noise it makes drove us potty.

When this bright red gladiolus suddenly appeared it was inevitable it would end up in a Monday vase sooner or later. One of a batch of 25 bought from Aldi two or three years ago, it is one of only about 3 blooms in total over that period, working out to less than £1 per bloom!

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Growing Pothos from Cuttings is one of the best ways to multiply this plant with ease and also for free! Here are all the details on Propagating Pothos correctly!