Maca

The maca survived the winter and looks quite happy amongst the weeds. There isn't a lot of it and its not very photogenic.

Gortahork cabbage

I am not a big fan of cabbage but it is popular especially the giant Gortahork cabbages that the Irish Seedsavers distribute. Most appeared to have died in the bad frosts but green shoots are emerging from the slime. We should have seed this year. The spring cabbages Offeheim mostly died in the frost. Out of about 100 plants 20 have survived, heavy selection for a cold winter. It is a small population to save seed from.

Talet, like it is

These seeds arrived in the post today from Owen of Radix. His blog is the most entertaining one I know of. Also known as the American Hog Peanut, Amphicarpaea bracteata is native to eastern North America and was a popular food of native Americans. It can reproduce either by flowers which open and are pollinated, or by cleistogamous flowers (which develop into seeds without opening, following self-pollination). The cleistogamous flowers can be above ground or below ground. The seed pods are both above and below ground. It will be interesting to see how they do here. I would love them to naturalise in the woods. I have potted them up in the polytunnel and will pamper them this year.

Monsanto patents heat tolerance in brccolli

Do you know where your seeds are coming from? It gets scarier and scarier; have a look at this

Visit To Knockvicar Gardens and Lough Bishop House

We were invited up to Knockvicar Organic Gardens at the weekend for their seed swop. I was feeling really ill on the way up and was grateful that Mike did most of the driving. We stayed at Lough Bishop House on Saturday night as a treat and because we wanted to see their Moilie cattle. Helen and Christopher Kelly's hospitality was wonderfully relaxing and I would have liked to stay for longer. The seed swop at Knockvicar was impressive. There is a lot going on up there. A great crowd turned up and there was a showing of the film ‘Our Seeds: Seeds Blong Yumi’ as well as a talk from me on seed saving. Delicious vegetarian food was provided by Maison Djerbi. Thank you to everyone who made it a great weekend for me.

Nigel's Trug

Nigel lives on Sherkin and mostly messes around with boats and plays the accordion. He also makes very handsome trugs. If you would like one you can contact him here nigelctowse@yahoo.co.uk

And, you can look at his boat here

Happy Christmas All