It’s time to think about nest boxes

Succulents are some of the coolest plants you can have in your collection! Keeping that in mind, we bring you a simple hack to cultivate them quickly! Do This Simple Trick to Grow More Succulents in No Time!

When you have time off work, you might not always go away. But that time you have off work can be put to good use to try and further your sustainable practices.

It’s Sunday morning, and Ryan is still asleep, and I got a bit bored and started playing around with one of those “blog title generators”. (For those of you for whom this is a new concept, they generate click-bait style headlines for a topic you give them.)

It’s a couple of days until the next stop on my virtual book tour, so it’s time to take off the pith helmet and put my feet up with a cup of tea and a biscuit. In a recent interview, I respond to a question I was asked about my favourite biscuit – which has to be Snickerdoodles. You can’t buy them, you have to make them, and they have nothing whatsoever to do with Snickers chocolate bars, or peanuts in general. They are a divine, spiced* biscuit (cookie) that’s very moreish and goes very nicely with a good cuppa.

Helen Anne Curry, University of Cambridge

One of the nerdy things I enjoy doing in my spare time is researching the first seeds to have made it into space. This is what I have found so far:

Throughout history, herbs and spices have been extremely popular, used as medicines and aphrodisiacs as well as making their way into dinner. A plant that the Romans (and ancient Greeks and Egyptians) would have been familiar with was Silphium. They thought it was the finest of all seasonings, as well as a top notch medicinal plant. The Romans got a taste for meat from animals fed on Silphium, and it seems that the herb may well then have been grazed into extinction. It never seemed to make it into cultivation. Another possible explanation of Silphium’s disappearance is that a change in the Mediterranean climate meant it could no longer thrive, and died out naturally. According to Pliny, the last known Silphium plant was given to Emperor Nero as a gift.

I recently re-watched The Wartime Kitchen and Garden, and – as there is no legitimate way to acquire a permanent copy – I am slowly making transcripts of them. My episode 1 transcript is here.

Another of my dad’s minimalistic (but tasty!) recipes, for a wartime crumble mix that uses breadcrumbs rather than flour.

I am making transcripts for The Wartime Kitchen and Garden, a fascinating series starring Ruth Mott and Peter Dodson, with a voiceover by Peter Thoday. This is episode four (of eight). [You’ll find the other transcripts, and other relevant posts, under the Home Front tag.]

I am making transcripts for The Wartime Kitchen and Garden, a fascinating series starring Ruth Mott and Peter Dodson, with a voiceover by Peter Thoday. This is episode five (of eight). [You’ll find the other transcripts, and other relevant posts, under the Home Front tag.]

Given the shortage of onions during WW2, it’s not surprising that there aren’t many wartime recipes in which they play a starring role, but I did manage to find three – all of which required the onions to be parboiled. I’d never boiled an onion before, but we gave it a go, and (to save on fuel!) I boiled six onions at once in order to try all three recipes.