Planting perennial veggies

The arrival of some ulluco (Ulluco tuberosus) tubers from Incredible Vegetables left me pondering how best to store them until it’s time to plant them out (after the risk of frost has passed, in spring). Given that I also have mashua and oca tubers kicking around the kitchen, and that everyone will soon be receiving seed potatoes (if they haven’t already), then I thought it might be nice to have a general round-up of how to store tubers for planting. A lot of the advice will be relevant to all kinds of tubers, but each species is likely to have its own quirks. If you have advice, details for new species, or queries, then leave them in the comments – I can update this post later.

How does a kitchen gardener choose what to grow? It’s about balancing quite a complex set of variables, which include the space and time available, the local climate and soil, the gardener’s skill level and what they like to eat. That last one is, itself, quite a complicated topic as culture plays a significant role. There are many thousands of edible plants on the planet; most people only eat a small number and grow fewer still.

Yesterday I read that Trump adviser Myron Ebell, a climate change denier, thinks that the green movement is the greatest threat to freedom.

It’s hard to imagine anyone being more excited about eating lettuce than the three astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were yesterday, when they tucked into the first leaves of space-grown lettuce they’ve been allowed to eat. Despite having to sanitise the leaves first, with citric-acid-based, food-safe, antibacterial wipes (yummy!), they broke out the oil and vinegar and tucked in with gusto. They even thanked Mission Control and the scientists for giving them the opportunity to take part in this payload mission, and saved some veggies for the Russian cosmonauts who were outside on a spacewalk at harvest time.

Buying plants

Companion planting is the catch-all term for exploiting the many ways in which plants interact with each other. Companion planting is often portrayed as a simple matter of which plants grow well together, but the small amount of scientific research that has been done suggests that this is not the case.

“April showers bring May flowers.” English proverb

At 11 pm on Friday (BST, 18:01 EDT), SpaceX launched an uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). This Dragon capsule has been to the ISS twice before, making it the first to fly in space for a third time. This is the 18th SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract mission for NASA: CRS-18.

When Virgin Galactic’s Unity 22 flew into space on Sunday, it carried one billionaire passenger and three tubes filled with plants.

I’m lucky enough to live reasonably close to the Earth Trust, an organisation that aims to offer people life changing experiences that reconnect them to the natural world. They have lots of free and reasonably-priced events for both children and adults, and welcome lots of school and other groups to their HQ alongside Wittenham Clumps (a lovely vantage point from which to get a good view of Didcot!). Over the weekend I went to a workshop they had organised entitled ‘Cordage and Fibres‘, which promised to show interested parties how to make rope and cord from nettle, hemp and flax. It also aimed to explain retting, scutching and heckling.

The latest addition to the garden is a Gardman poppy bird feeder. I’ve popped it in the border and filled it with seed for the moment, but it can be used as a water dish in the summer – it’s made from painted cast iron. I was given mine by Gardman for review purposes, but they’re being sold to raise money for The Royal British Legion, as part of their annual poppy appeal. Gardman want to raise £200,000 for the charity, and 50p from the sale of each feeder will be donated. There’s a special bird food range to go with it, also including a donation to the poppy appeal.

COP21, the United Nations conference on climate change, has ended with a ‘landmark’ agreement that climate change is something we all need to tackle together. Last week I was talking about what gardeners can do to reduce their carbon footprint, and a lot of it is about being thrifty with resources – something that tends to come naturally to us! Over the weekend, Ryan has done his bit by recycling plastic plant pots in my direction. He came across a newly landscaped commercial building, where the unwanted plant pots were being discarded.