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Showing posts from May, 2014

Oyster Mushrooms

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Mushrooms - I love them so when I stumbled across a "grow your own" kit from the Espresso Mushroom Company last autumn I thought I would give it a try.  We are a nation of coffee drinkers with over 70 million cups of coffee drunk every day in the UK apparently so instead of discarding the grounds, they are recycled and used to grow mushrooms.  Coffee grounds are collected from cafes around Brighton on a specially adapted bike diverting them from landfill.  During their growth, mushrooms break down the coffee waste and averts greenhouse gas emissions that occurs when untreated coffee grounds biodegrade. They are nature’s recyclers! Each Kitchen Garden contains coffee from 100 espressos and after they've finished growing, you are left with some lovely mushroom-enriched soil enhancer compost. So how did it go?  Well, I only actually got to eat two at a time on average in the end!   The first cycle died, the second produced two very large ones that d

Things are beginning to grow again on the plot...

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Spring is finally here, I hope anyway!  The last week or so has been warm, well in double figures anyway which is an improvement.  The overwintering onions and garlic are beginning to swell now which is great as I was worried that four months of gales and rain may have killed them.  I've had to redig some of the areas that were dug in winter due to the thistles coming through (amongst other things) from the plot next to me.  It's not been worked since I've been there and I'm finding I'm having to redig the same bit every weekend so I reckon these areas will remain bare for another year.  The bulbs put on a bonny show: However, I do have some potatoes coming through, not the earlies strangely enough but at least something is growing!  I've planted some more onions and shallots as I didn't have enough last year so if the overwintering ones survive, I shall be sorted for the winter.  Believe it or not, the kale was still growing when I dug them up