HAVE YOUR FLOWER GARDEN ... AND EAT IT

For Rachael Voaden - founder of The Edible Flower Shop - choosing beautiful flowers that were also edible became a lifestyle necessity. The idyllic thatched cottage in rural mid-Devon that she still resides in today - along with her husband and two young boys – has everything one aspires to owning in the countryside. That is, except a large garden.

For someone like Rachael, clearly passionate about self-sufficiency and cultivation, she was not going to allow limited exterior space to become an obstruction, in fact the very opposite. What started as a personal solution then grew in to an online shop success story. With national and global interest and a flurry of regular customers, The Edible Flower Shop has fast become a sustainable and flourishing internet business.

"I want everyone to know how great edible flowers are, and to look at their gardens differently, particularly if they have restricted space," explains Rachael. "Besides providing the right seeds to plant, I supply growing guides for each flower and recipe suggestions post harvest. Any sized growing space is ideal for my products. They suit window boxes, courtyard gardens, roof terraces, allotments, even large country estates."

Edible flowers can create a stunning and colourful backdrop for any exterior. But whilst looking good, they also taste great. Delicious floral salads, cake decoration, home-made food colouring, quirky ice-cubes, calming tea and scented sugars are just some of the recipes that can be made from the flowers. And it's all become possible thanks to Rachael's creative and resourceful idea.

Currently selling 54 varieties, The Edible Flower Shop aims to bring its products to the everyday person. "There is a misconception that edible flowers only suit Michelin-star type cooking or Foraging Restaurants. What is actually true is that everyone with access to outside areas has the potential to grow and eat them," says Rachael. "I have also given a lot of thought about how I can help the bees, so I decided to highlight all the flowers on the RHS Perfect for Pollinators list."

Rachael concludes: "Flowers have been eaten for centuries, but fell out of favour in recent decades, so living in a society where growing space comes at a premium, isn't it time we made the most of what we've got?"

Full Disclosure Statement: The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW received no compensation for any component of this article.

Square Foot Gardening Plant Spacers (set of three) – Product Review

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Have you ever wanted to get into square foot gardening but just could not be bothered with creating, time and again, for planting, the grind pattern made with string?

I did but that playing about with the string put me off. Now there is an answer available by way of the plant spacers designed and handmade in Britain in Sandy, in Bedfordshire.

This is about the easiest way to space plants/seeds for square foot gardening with no need to mark out your beds saving time and effort.

Get bumper crops in your raised beds with minimal effort, time and money. Square foot gardening is particularly effective in the summer months by saving water and reduced the amount of space for weeds to grow.

The three guides in this pack allow you to plant 1, 2, 4, 8, 9 or 16 seeds/plants per square foot, depending on the kind of vegetables that you wish to plant and grow. Some require a great deal more space than others.

Planting guide printed on guides so no need to work out spacing from packets or reading books. Simply look at the guides for the vegetable you wish to plant and in brackets will be the number of plants to put in a square foot listed on the correct guide to use and there is a handy ruler in inches and cm on each guide.

Dirt and soil cleans easily off guide and it will not weather or deteriorate so can be used for years to come.

Produced from recyclable PVC and handmade in the UK.

All three guides in the pack at just £11.99 and they will last almost for ever.

http://squaredgardening.co.uk/

These templates are an absolute doddle to use and they also work well enough in not so square beds, as mine are, being builder bags filled with soil.

© 2014

Disclosure: I received a set of plant spacers at the Edible Garden Show 2014 for review purposes, but all opinions here are mine.

The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW received no compensation for any component of this article.

NLWA has been at the Edible Garden Show 2014

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

North London Waste Authority has be attending the Edible Garden Show on the weekend of 28 to 30 March 2014 and this is where I met them on Friday, March 28.

The Edible Garden Show, the award-winning ‘grow your own’ event has been taking place this year at Haringey’s iconic Alexandra Palace, and I had forgotten what a great venue this is, and it brought together a host of gardening and cookery experts, demonstrations and exhibits to show how easy it is to achieve a sustainable lifestyle by growing and cooking your own produce.

This was the first year that the Edible Garden Show was, actually in the London area, having previously been at the Stoneleigh showground in Warwickshire, not a location that has been easily to reach for anyone not using or wanting to use a car.

NLWA has been joining chefs Phil Vickery and Rachel Green, gardening expert Pippa Greenwood, and exhibitors from the National Vegetable Society, among many others, at the show, where they have been sharing a stand with their wholly owned company, LondonWaste Ltd.

NLWA has been showing visitors to the how easy it is to Wise Up To Waste and deal with their food waste better – from preventing food waste, to recycling and composting it. Information about where to get hold of LondonWaste Ltd compost was available and NLWA’s waste prevention advisers were on hand to give advice about reducing one's food waste.

Far too much food is being wasted in our homes, and not our homes alone, and many people, and hence the waste, nowadays, do not know all too often how to actually cook a mean from scratch and especially not from leftovers, unlike our grandparents and their parents did. A remedy for this is at hand though by way of the “North London Food Lovers' Cookbook” which is available to download at their website and by entering the NLWA's food waste challenge as a reward for participating.

Being a zero waste (and this means zero waste not just zero waste to landfill as our governments so often talk about when they use the term “zero waste”) advocate and a reuse consultant I must say that this book is a real good resource and has given even me some extra recipes for using up possible leftovers.

Check out their website at http://wiseuptowaste.org.uk/

LondonWaste Ltd can be found on http://www.londonwaste.co.uk/

© 2014

Edible Garden Show 2014 – Visit Impressions

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The Edible Garden Show has now been running for a number of years but has always, to me at least and others in the South of England, due to its location at the showground in Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, been rather inaccessible, especially if one does not use a car.

In 2014 it finally came to the London area and this made it possible for those of us who cannot or do not wish to travel by car to actually attend it and the venue chosen, though still a little off the track, so to speak, in the form of Alexandra Palace in the London Borough of Haringay, is probably the best location possible.

The building and halls simply are beautiful – I had forgotten how nice Alexandra Palace actually is having not been there for over 25 years – and its setting overlooking London and in the middle of a large park make it a fantastic venue.

Despite the day that I attended being the first day and a Friday by lunchtime it had become very busy indeed and those exhibitors that were conspicuous by their absence will be regretting the fact that they did not chose to be at the show.

The show was well laid out and very easy indeed to navigate, something that is important so that visitors are able to see all the exhibits without missing anything. This is, alas, often overlooked by organizers of shows when the layout is being complicated making navigating a nightmare. Despite this, however, I have managed to miss a couple of points that would have been most interesting due to the fact that I forgot to consult my notes that I had made prior to the show, such as the Poultry Handbook. But, hopefully, I will learn from this.

I would also like to use this opportunity here to express my thanks to the organizers and the press team for the way they looked after us members of the press corps during our visit with a great press office where one could relax very well indeed and setting of this particular room, the Roman Room, was stunning also.

© 2014

From Russia with hoe

Ploskorez Swage – Product Review

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

PLOSKOREZ SWAGE S, 1.30 m, Stainless Cultivator+Weeder Hoe

Long Handle 1.3m. Strong, 3-edge-sharp, swaged & pointed stainless steel head, oiled wooden (Aspen or Birch) rounded-rectangular handle for upright position strain-free work (hold it with both thumbs facing the sky). Light weight.

Adjustable head allowing precision work around flowers or vegetables. Indispensable for all soil work (from subsurface down to 150 mm), loosening, planting, mounding, shaping and weeding tasks in larger areas and along long rows. Weed the patio hard surfaces. Slash overgrown weeds. Chop/Mix compost.

Blend fertilizers and compost into the soil. Mix up concrete. Contributes to improving soil structure. Aerates and mellows the soil. Breaks down clots. Hoe without moving a lot of soil. Hook. Rake. Chop. Slash unwanted plant growth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_ecnW_6muE

I have encountered the Ploskorez tools for the first time ever in the real world – having seen it before online – at the Edible Garden Show 2014 at the Alexandra Place on Friday, March 28, 2014 where Vladimir Kondratyuk kindly allowed me to take one for review I can but say that so far I am very impressed (and I do not impress easily) as to the capabilities of this tool.

Having used this tool in a test-drive, so to speak, on an old heap of soil that was totally overgrown with weeds and grass and consisted mainly of a clay mix I am very impressed indeed with this hoe (well, it is more than a hoe really) in the way it has turned that material into lovely soil that I would be able to plant in straight away had that been my aim.

One problem I encountered though and that is due to the fact that I did not read the instructions and used the standard hand hold for a drag hoe rather than the one with both thumbs towards the sky and nearly go myself some blisters.

So, the one thing to remember when using this tool is that the grip must be overhand with your thumbs forward – pointing to the sky, so to speak – and not the standard grip that all too often is used with the round handled hoes and such where the thumb points backwards. The latter will get you blisters... as the man says... use with both thumbs facing the sky...

The PLOSKOREZ Swage hoe (which is more than a hoe really) will be equally at home in the commercial smallholding and market garden as well as the allotment and the home garden with raised beds and can handle more or less anything that is thrown at it, I should think.

Oh, did I mention that I love the Ploskorez Swage Hoe. Well, I do and that very much and I believe that it will be THE tool that from now on will go into the garden with me each and every time.

For more information visit http://www.ploskorez.co.uk/

© 2014

Disclosure: I received a Ploskorez Swage hoe for review purposes, but all opinions here are mine.

The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW received no compensation for any component of this article.