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AKG100 - 2010 Garden Plan

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Edible and beautifil calendula

It looks as though spring is finally on its way to the Alternative Kitchen Garden, and it’s time to finalize the 2010 Garden Plan. There’s going to be edible flowers and tea herbs, but what about the conventional vegetables?

Riley Jordan from the Dig It Down Under podcast is dropping in give an AKG Correpsondent report on what it’s like to garden in Melbourne, and there’s still time to enter my birthday book giveaway if you’re quick.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter. If you’re interested in becoming an Alternative Kitchen Garden Correspondent then read the FAQ.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or Chelsea Green or via Amazon UK and Amazon.com

The Alternative Kitchen Garden Seed Appeal aims to raise enough money for the Kew Millennium Seed Bank to conserve an entire plant species and the wildlife it supports.

AKG099 - Sweet Violets

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Sweet Violet, photo courtesy of Wiggly Wigglers

This is a special birthday episode of the Alternative Kitchen Garden show and I’m looking at the birth flower for February – the Sweet Violet, Violet odorata. A wild flower here in the UK, the sweet violet has a long history and is linked to Valentine traditions. It’s also edible – check out the information on PFAF; it even warrants its own PFAF article.

I’m going to be growing sweet violets as part of my edible flower garden this year (and they can even be used as a tea herb!). I have seeds from Chiltern Seeds and a plant on the way from Wiggly Wigglers.

AKG Correspondents Robb and Jackie from Sustainable Living are back to tell us more about their off-grid, permaculture project – in this episode they explain about the permaculture principle of self-regulation.

And because it’s my birthday I’m giving presents – I have two signed copies of my book (The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A to Z) , two copies of Through the Eye of a Needle and a copy of the Book of Rubbish Ideas to give away. Listen out for how to enter at the end of this episode.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter. If you’re interested in becoming an Alternative Kitchen Garden Correspondent then read the FAQ.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or Chelsea Green or via Amazon UK and Amazon.com

The Alternative Kitchen Garden Seed Appeal aims to raise enough money for the Kew Millennium Seed Bank to conserve an entire plant species and the wildlife it supports.

AKG098 - Bees

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The Bumblebee Conservation Trust has a nice section on their website about gardening for bumblebees, and CAT have Ten Things to do to Help Honeybees or you could Adopt a Hive. For more details on solitary bees check out InsectPix.

American gardeners can have a look at The Pollinator Partnership and Aussie Bee has information about the bee species native to Australia.

For instructions on how to make bee nests, try Buglife and Gardens for Wildlife and I included the links to information on Warré hives in the second edition of my blogging for bees carnival. There’s bee-related information all over my website, so have a look to see what’s new.

The Alternative Kitchen Garden Seed Appeal aims to raise enough money for the Kew Millennium Seed Bank to conserve an entire plant species and the wildlife it supports.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or Chelsea Green or via Amazon UK and Amazon.com

AKG097 - Winter Sowing

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Winter sown seeds in the cold frame

In this episode Emma talks about things to do in snowy gardens and winter sowing. To find out more about winter sowing, check out WinterSown.org and for more on sowing and harvesting crops throughout the winter have a look at What to sow in autumn & winter on the Real Seeds website. If you can’t see your garden under the snow then perhaps Indoor Salads would be more your thing at the moment!

Emma also kicks off her Edible Flowers project with winter sown capers and crimson flowered broad (fava) beans and continues her Tea project by sowing basil seeds.

We also have our first report from AKG Correspondents Robb and Jackie from the Sustainable Living Project. If you’re interested in becoming an Alternative Kitchen Garden Correspondent then read the FAQ. And if you’re looking for more information on the free book offer, then head over to the Green Shopping Catalogue.

Leave me a comment, send me an email, come and chat in the new Alternative Kitchen Garden community or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or Chelsea Green or via Amazon UK and Amazon.com.

AKG096 - Holiday Plants

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Frosty ivy

It’s midwinter, and in this episode of the Alternative Kitchen Garden I’m looking at the legends and traditions associated with some of the plants that we bring into our houses for the holidays – holly and ivy, miseltoe, Yule logs and poinsettias.

For more information on these legends, have a look at the Anglican Gardener and Woodlands Junior School websites, and don’t forget that this is an ideal time to feed the birds.

Plants are wonderful things – help to save an entire wild plant species by donating to the AKG seed appeal.

If you’re interested in becoming an Alternative Kitchen Garden Correspondent then read more here.

Leave me a comment, send me an email, come and chat in the new Alternative Kitchen Garden community or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or Chelsea Green or via Amazon UK and Amazon.com.

AKG095 - Garden Organization

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A label tidy is a useful way to keep old labels organized

It’s nearly midwinter here in the UK, and traditionally the time for planning next year’s garden and getting organized. Gillian Carson from My Tiny Plot talked specifically about garden plans in episode 53, and in this show I’m looking at organizational tools such as notebooks, To Do lists, software packages and online tools – including Bento, MyFolia.com and GrowVeg.com. Lists of monthly tasks, like the ones available from Garden Organic can also be invaluable.

If you’re interested in becoming an Alternative Kitchen Garden Correspondent then read more here.

Leave me a comment, send me an email, come and chat in the new Alternative Kitchen Garden community or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or Chelsea Green or via Amazon UK and Amazon.com.

Alternative Kitchen Garden correspondents

News agencies have journalists all over the world. These foreign correspondents report back about current affairs in their target country, and make an invaluable contribution to our understanding of different cultures. The BBC even gives them their own programme, From Our Own Correspondent in which they can talk about things that may fall slightly beyond their daily remit but are still of international interest.

I’d like to do something similar with the Alternative Kitchen Garden – after all, there are kitchen gardens all over the globe. Would you like to be an AKG Correspondent? You could talk about your garden, plants that grow in your climate, native plants and events and gardens from parts of the world that I may never see.

If you’d like to be a correspondent, then all you need to do is record your thoughts. You all know the topics that the AKG covers – edible and useful plants (anything that gives a yield in the permaculture sense, so most plants could be included!), green gardening, environmental issues and wildlife. If you’d like to run your topic past me first then by all means send me an email.

Technical spec:
1. Please remember to record somewhere with a quiet background (unless you’re outside with natural sounds!) as it’s hard to edit something with constant background noise.
2. MP3 format is preferable, but if you can’t manage that then send me what you have and I will attempt to convert it.
3. Try and keep your report under 5 mins long, unless you want a whole show to yourself!
4. By all means send supporting photographs along with the show.
5. There are no deadlines – send in your report and I’ll add it into a show as soon as possible. If it has a ‘Use by Date’ then let me know!
6. The idea is that you would be an ongoing correspondent, filing reports from time to time, but if you only want to do one then that’s fine too.

If you don’t want to record yourself then you can send written reports for me (or Pete, if you’re male) to read out for you. If the AKG Correspondent program takes off then I will make blog badges for those of you with websites of your own :D

If you have questions I haven’t covered then just drop me a line. I look forward to hearing from you!

AKG094 - Tea

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Tea plants

I’ve been thinking a lot about tea lately, as it turns out that the majority of tea bags aren’t entirely compostable after all. I guess it’s just evidence of the problems of the industrial cup of tea. We could all switch to loose leaf tea or grow our own herbal teas – which would get us much closer to the permaculture cup of tea. The PFAF list of possible tea plants is huge.

But how easy is it to grow your own real tea? In this episode I’m looking at three varieties of plant:

• Camellia sinensis is one of the main plants to provide green and black teas


• The flowers of Jasminum sambac, the Arabian Jasmine, are used to flavour green tea


• Manuka, Leptospermum scoparium is most well-known as a forage plant for honey, but it can also be used to make a herbal tea similar to honeybush.

If you were looking forward to an episode on gifts for gardeners, try the one from last year :D

Leave me a comment, send me an email, come and chat in the new Alternative Kitchen Garden community or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or Chelsea Green or via Amazon UK and Amazon.com.

AKG093 - Chicken Forage

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Hen Solo choosing weeds to eat

What plants can you grow that chickens like to eat? My hens (Princess Layer and Hen Solo) like tucking into leafy greens of all descriptions, as well as some weeds. There’s also an update on the AKG Seed Appeal to raise money to help Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank save wild plant species.

Leave me a comment, send me an email, come and chat in the new Alternative Kitchen Garden community or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now in the UK. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or via Amazon UK – both of which will ship internationally.

AKG092 - Prickly Nut Woods

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A prickly Sweet Chesnut seed pod

Join me for a visit to Prickly Nut Woods, where Ben Law built his woodland house (as seen on Grand Designs) and lives among the sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) trees. You can see some of my photos in this Flickr set.

Ben has written three books about his life in Prickly Nut Woods – The Woodland Way (A Permaculture Approach to Sustainable Woodland Management), The Woodland House and the full-colour and very beautiful Woodland Year, all published by Permanent Publications and available via the Green Shopping Catalogue.

Also in this show I talk about the new AKG Seed Appeal to raise money to help Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank save wild plant species.

Leave me a comment, send me an email, come and chat in the new Alternative Kitchen Garden community or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now in the UK. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or via Amazon UK – both of which will ship internationally.

AKG091 - October

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The garden on a rainy October day

Find out why my head hasn’t been in the gardening game, and what I’m going to do in the garden now that it is. The heritage onion variety is Rousham Park Hero, by the way, one that is local to Oxfordshire. In this episode I’m also talking about what will henceforth be known as the Lost Episode, and my new Alternative Kitchen Garden Online Community – come and join the fun if you would like to be a beta tester. And there’s the latest news on the book as well.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now in the UK. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or via Amazon UK – both of which will ship internationally.

Sabbatical

It has been a momentous year for the Alternative Kitchen Garden, with the publication of my first book – the A to Z. On the ground, things have been a little more lackluster, with various factors (including absences at key times) contributing to the garden being disappointing this year.

Pete and I have also come to the conclusion (discussed in the Emma and Pete Show that it is time for us to move – away from the baggage that surrounds us here and towards a more peaceful and happier life.

Because of all these things, the plans I had for the garden have changed and my focus needs to be elsewhere for the time being. To that end, I am taking a break from producing the Alternative Kitchen Garden show. I look forward to being able to pick up where I left off, with renewed energy, in the future. In the meantime, don’t forget that there are plenty of previous episodes for you to (re)discover, and you can keep up with my progress on the blog.

Warm regards
Emma

AKG090 - Aloe Vera

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Aloe vera offsets

Aloe vera is a great plant to have in a kitchen garden, even if you have to grow it inside on a windowsill. Listen to this episode if you want to have your own herbal first aid kit on standby, or fresher air. Learn more about aloe vera via PFAF, and more about growing your own fresh air in episode 65.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now in the UK. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or via Amazon UK – both of which will ship internationally.

AKG089 - Garden Birds

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Starlings on a bird table

Birds add a lot to a garden, but many of our familiar garden birds are in decline and need our help. In this episode I look at how to make your garden into a home for house sparrows, starlings and blackbirds.

If you’re trying to identify the bird song in your garden, then BBC Radio 4 and the Guardian both have a selection of recordings you can listen to online or download. The RSPB is a great source of information about garden birds and wildlife gardening, and if you’re looking for a selection of bird food, including live mealworms, then Wiggly Wigglers have a really good range.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now in the UK. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or via Amazon UK – both of which will ship internationally.

AKG088 - Organic Fertilizers

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Comfrey liquid fertilizer

This episode looks at feeding plants in the garden: macronutrients and micronutrients, solid and liquid fertilizers, high/ medium/ low fertility soil improvers – what’s it all about?

We’ve covered composting several times in previous shows (see also episode 26 on worm composting, 32 for leaf mould and 60 for cold composting), as well as using comfrey, urine and green manures.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter.

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My book – ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A To Z‘ – is out now in the UK. Follow the link for reviews, interviews and more. You can order a copy online from the Green Shopping Catalogue or via Amazon UK – both of which will ship internationally.

March 9th 2010
8:01 PM GMT

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