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AKG076 - The Eden Project

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A view across the Eden Project’s Outdoor Biome

See more photos of Eden

In this episode I take a look at the Eden Project – one of my favourite gardens to visit and a real horticultural wonder of the world. The Eden Project focuses on edible and useful plants, and so it’s a great place for an Alternative Kitchen Garden to visit to pick up ideas and see unusual plants growing. It’s also perfect for an environmentally friendly day out.

Even if you can’t get to the Eden Project now, it might be a place you’d like to support. You can shop online at the Eden Shop or become an Eden Friend.

I also unveil the winner of the Permaculture competition, have a quick look at the new River Cottage Land Share scheme, and invite you to send in your letters to Santa if you’re hoping for gardening goodies this Christmas.

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

AKG075 - Composting in Winter

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Can you compost in winter? Of course you can! Whether you’ve got a hot heap, a cold compost bin, a wormery, or just some space for trench composting, then with a little bit of preparation you can continue composting through the winter. And if you won’t be able to see the garden under the snow, then think about Bokashi.

And don’t forget that it’s time to make leaf mould!

AKG listener Mark has been conducting some experiments in his garden this year – find out whether tansy protected his brassicas from whitefly, if nettle concentrate puts cabbage white butterflies off, if pennyroyal deters ants and if you can use marigolds to control weeds.

You’ve only got a couple more days to enter my permaculture give-away, so send those entries in!

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

AKG074 - Permaculture Basics

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This episode takes a look at what Permaculture is, and some of the basic tools and concepts we can use to make permaculture gardens. Permaculture has been mentioned before on the show – The RISC Roof Garden is an example of the permaculture Forest Garden, and comfrey is known as the permaculture plant.

In this episode we look at layers, zones, forest gardens, herb spirals and sheet mulch gardens, and you can find more about all of these in my permaculture basics Squidoo lens.

I’m also giving away a copy of the new second edition of Permaculture – A Beginner’s Guide by Graham Burnett. To be in with a chance of winning, send me your thoughts on permaculture – ideas, photos, drawings, poems, articles or anything else – by the end of October. If I get enough entries I’ll put them all on show somewhere, and Pete and I will pick our favourite to be the winner.

And show listener Teresa recommends tuning in to the October 10th episode of Science Friday, which is about fall gardening and composting.

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

AKG073 - Out & About

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The Agitator

Madeleine from Mad About Herbs is back to tell us what we should be doing in the herb garden now that it’s autumn.

I’ve been out and about, to the Food Growing Bloggers Meet-up – check out my photos. We were lucky enough to be joined by Ben from Real Seeds, who talked about the important of seed saving (a topic that was also covered in AKG 028). There were also talks from Patrick from Bifurcated Carrots and Simon from The Plot Thickens.

And I’ve also been to a composting plant in Dorset – New Earth Solutions – to see one of the ways in which we can deal with organic waste (garden waste, food waste and cardboard). I took some photos there too!

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

AKG072 - September

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It’s time to clear spent crops away to the compost heap

It’s September, and here in the Alternative Kitchen Garden we’re looking back at what’s been happening this summer and turning our thoughts to getting ready for winter.

As well as harvesting the last summer crops before the first frosts (check out the frost dates in your area), we’re saving seeds, sowing green manures, getting ready to make leaf mould and thinking about homes for wildlife. And on top of all that we’re sowing seeds for winter salads and leafy greens and peashoots!

To round off the show we have a wonderful music track from Rebsie Fairholm (who also blogs at Daughter of the Soil) about something that disturbs the peace in many an autumn garden.

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

Guerilla Gardening

This week, Rachel is sharing her Big Sofa with Richard Reynolds – author of Guerilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries. They had a good old chat, over a cup of tea, about how he got started as a guerrilla gardener and why lavender is the perfect plant for guerrilla gardeners.

AKG071 - Ladybirds

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The latest episode of the Alternative Kitchen Garden is on ladybirds – or ladybeetles – which are a real force for good in the garden. I’ve been finding out about our native ladybird species, but also about an invasive alien species that I’ve spotted in the garden. If you want to know what Harlequin ladybirds look like, or report a siting, then visit the website of the Harlequin Ladybird Survey.

You’ve been sending me emails on using tansy to repel whitefly, composting food waste in a food digester (check out Lisa’s Bokashi website) and courgettes.

There’s still a few days left if you want to listen to my appearance on Radio 4’s Go4It show, and if you haven’t already seen it then you might want to check out my article on useful weeds that appeared in the Guardian newspaper: No Hoe Zone.

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

AKG Index

2007
AKG001 - Jerusalem artichokes
AKG002 - Garlic
AKG003 - Compost
AKG004 - Indoor Salads
AKG005 - Sowing Seeds
AKG006 - Chard and leaf beet
AKG007 - Comfrey
AKG008 - Parsley
AKG009 - Raised Beds
AKG010 - Nasturtiums
AKG011 - Seedlings
AKG012 - French Beans
AKG013 - The RISC Roof Garden
AKG014 - Water Wise Gardening
AKG015 - Courgettes/ Zuchinni
AKG016 - Windowboxes
AKG017 - June
AKG018 - Oriental Vegetables
AKG019 - Sunflowers
AKG020 - Welsh Onions
AKG021 - Peas and Peashoots
AKG022 - Lemon Balm
AKG023 - Seeds for Late Sowing
AKG024 - Ryton Organic Gardens
AKG025 - Armchair Gardening
AKG026 - Worm Composting
AKG027 - Green Manures for Fall
AKG028 - Seed Saving
AKG029 - Pee
AKG030 - Overwintering Onions
AKG031 - Sweetcorn
AKG032 - Leaf Mould
AKG033 - Slugs
AKG034 - A Review of the Season
AKG035 - Broad (Fava) Beans
AKG036 - Apple Day
AKG037 - 20 Garden Uses for a Plastic Bottle
AKG038 - Pumpkins
AKG039 - Mushrooms
AKG040 - Cats in the Garden
AKG041 - Planting Pips
AKG042 - Chickpeas/ Garbanzo Beans
AKG043 - Tiger Nuts/ Chufa
AKG044 - Soil Composition
AKG045 - Herbs for Tea
AKG046 - 2007 Quiz
AKG047 - A Look Back at 2007

2008
AKG048 - Onions and Shallots
AKG049 - Grow Dome Tour
AKG050 - Seed Swaps
AKG051 - Cress
AKG052 - Buying Plants
AKG053 - Garden Planning
AKG054 - Tomatoes
AKG055 - Peppers
AKG056 - Aubergines/ Eggplants
AKG057 - Sprouting Broccoli
AKG058 - Cold Frames
AKG059 - Weeds
AKG060 - Cat Cold Composting
AKG061 - Potatoes
AKG062 - Chickens
AKG063 - Achocha
AKG064 - Blueberries
AKG065 - Grow Your Own Fresh Air
AKG066 - Pest Repellent Plants
AKG067 - Master Composters
AKG068 - Bokashi
AKG069 - June Catch-Up
AKG070 - Winter Crops
AKG071 - Ladybirds
AKG072 - September
AKG073 - Out & About
AKG074 - Permaculture Basics
AKG075 - Composting in Winter
AKG076 - The Eden Project

Download previous episodes in batches of 10.

Go4It and Penelope Bennet

If you’re missing your regular dose of the AKG while I’m scribbling away at my book then you might be interested in the following.

On Sunday (Sun 13 Jul, 19:15 – 19:45) I’m making a guest appearance on the Radio 4 programme Go4It. I went to Dulwich on Monday and was grilled about fruit and vegetables by a group of school children with an allotment. And just so you know, the hour we spent recording outside was about the only dry hour in the day! If you can’t listen live then you’ll be able to catch the show via the website all next week.

And over at The Big Sofa, Rach has been lucky enough to interview one of my gardening heroes – Penelope Bennet, who wrote the book Windowbox Allotment. It’s an awesome book, encouraging people with the smallest spaces to start growing edible plants, and it’s fantastic to hear the author talking about her own garden in London.

AKG070 - Winter Crops

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In this episode you can find out the exciting reason why recent AKG episodes haven’t been quite as regular as they could be, and why your garden knows that we’ve just passed the solstice – even if you don’t!

But the main focus of this episode is on planning for winter crops, especially for those people who have started to grow their own vegetables because they want to save money during the Credit Crunch and would like to make the most of their garden throughout the year.

You might also want to go back and listen to episode 23, on seeds for late sowing, or episode 18 on Oriental vegetables. And last year I wrote an article on how to grow spring cabbage.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter and you can also download a PDF transcript of this show.

AKG069 - June catch up

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I’m out in the Grow Dome this week, checking up on progress there and in the garden. Among other things there are new pond plants, too many tomatoes, potato flowers and new raised beds for the squash plants. What there isn’t is any soya beans.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter and you can also download a PDF transcript of this show.

AKG068 - Bokashi

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In this episode I talk about my experiences with the latest arrival on the composting scene – Bokashi.

Garden Organic are running a Bokashi trial – so if you’ve got experiences you would like to share with them you can download the details from their Home Composting website.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter and you can also download a PDF transcript of this show.

Flipping Channels

The Alternative Kitchen Garden is featured in the latest episode (episode 6) of Flipping Channels, a brief podcast that explores some of the podcasts available in the Podcast.com directory.

Podcast.com is organized into channels. The AKG is in the Hobbies channel. Another one you might like to look at is the Eco channel – there’s a lot of podcasts in there, although it’s pretty US-centric.

I hadn’t been to Podcast.com before, and a quick poke around in their directory this morning has brought up some treasures. The author of the China Bayles herbal mysteries (which I haven’t read, but keep meaning to!) recorded a series of 10 podcasts on herbs last spring called All About Thyme which I will be listening to.

And in a completely different vein, I discovered the new podcasts from Magnatune, a ‘fair trade’ record label. Listen to 60 minutes of (almost) uninterrupted Medieval music, or if that’s not your thing then have a look at their other podcasts.

AKG067 - Master Composters

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Intrepid Oxfordshire Master Composters test the heap temperature at Agrivert’s composting facility

In this episode I talk about why I got involved with the Oxfordshire Master Composter scheme, what it involves and the benefits of home composting.

Garden Organic’s home composting website is the place to find out whether there’s a Master Composter scheme in your area, and how to get in touch with your local Master Composters if you would like their help.

WRAP’s RecycleNow website has some good information for people who are new to composting, and you can find out about subsidized compost bins in your area there too.

If you want to know more about composting then check out some of the previous AKG episodes. Episode 3 is on general composting, episode 26 is on worm composting and episode 60 covers cold composting. Looking forward to later in the year, episode 32 explains how to make leaf mould.

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter and you can also download a PDF transcript of this show.

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Find out about this week’s composting offers from Wiggly Wigglers – and how to bag some free seed potatoes – at Muppet’s Moolah.

AKG066 - Pest Repellent Plants

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This time last year we were talking about courgettes, and hopefully this summer we’ll have better weather and can have more success with the courgette trial! And you can get a good deal on the forthcoming Seeds of Italy cookbook if you pre-order from their website!

This episode is all about pest repellent plants, including companion plants such as marigolds and nasturtiums and plants like the Shoo Fly plant (Nicandra physaloides) and the Scardy Cat plant (Coleus canina) and herbs that actively repel flies or larger pests!

Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter and you can also download a PDF transcript of this show.

November 21st 2008
2:42 AM GMT

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