Fluffius Muppetus has a new home! This blog is moving to www.coopette.com/blog - please update your links.

The new site is a home for all of my gardening activities - the blog, the Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast and my articles.

Use the following links to subscribe to the feeds:


The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast
Emma's articles
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Please drop by the new site and say hello.

There's lots of questions from listeners in episode 22 of the show. First up James tells us a little bit about his garden, and asks for help identifying a mystery plant

Then Emma talks about how easy to grow lemon balm, and what you can use it for once it is established in your garden.

Patrick from Bifurcated Carrots gives us the first installment of the history of heirloom vegetables.

And the show concludes with a round up of emails from listeners, including questions on sourcing Bokashi bran in the US and how to deal with ants and spotted cucumber beetles.

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I've been nominated for a 'Bloggers for Positive Change' award by Beansprouts.

This is Climate of Our Future's idea to celebrate the facts that bloggers everywhere are inspiring a more sustainable world.

Now it's my turn to make nominations :o)

Patrick, over at Bifurcated Carrots is leading a crusade against monocultures and genetic modification (amongst other things) in his garden full of wonderful heritage vegetable varieties.

Daughter of the Soil Rebsie grows and photographs the most beautiful heritage vegetables in her garden, and even breeds her own peas.

Life on an Oxfordshire lawn chronicles the efforts of an amateur naturalist to discover what exactly is living in his garden and gives us all another perspective on 'pests' and 'weeds'.

Calendula & Concrete has an organic veggie patch in Washington D.C. and is always growing, and cooking, something interesting.

And last, but not least, Ottawa Hortiphilia seems to be as plant-crazed as I am, and is constantly experimenting in the garden.

The people I have nominated can now participate in the fun by following these simple steps:

• 1. When you get tagged, write a post with links to up to 5 blogs that you think are trying to change the world in a positive way


• 2. In your post, make sure you link back to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.


• 3. Leave a comment or message for the bloggers you’re tagging, so they know they’re now part of the meme.


• 4. Optional: Proudly display the “Bloggers For Positive Global Change” award badge with a link to the post that you write up.

Harvesting the broccoli left me with a section of raised bed with space for new plants. This morning I was wondering what I could sow, but then I remembered that I had half a dozen summer purple sprouting broccoli (wok brocc) plants in the Grow Dome.

I have duly planted them out, given them stakes (it's windy) and cabbage root fly collars and surrounded them with organic slug pellets.

I also have some early purple sprouting plants, but they will have to stay in the Grow Dome for the time being.

While I was pottering about in the Grow Dome I made an unpleasant discovery - the nectarine is absolutely festooned with spider mite webs. This is entirely my fault. I noticed the webs a couple of weeks ago, but assumed they came from one of the baby spiders which is growing up in there. I have sprayed the tree with seaweed solution (which, if nothing else, will give it a bit of a feed and raise the humidity) and ordered a biological control. I've used the one for vine weevils, but I've never tried the red spider mite one.

I've suspected for some time now that I planted too much garlic. But it hasn't been the best year for garlic, and mine (like most people's) succumbed to rust. This, and the fact that I didn't have anywhere dry (who does???) to dry garlic out left me to leave it in the ground in the hope that the issue would somehow resolve itself.

This morning I realised that I own a greenhouse. Duh! And so despite the rain this afternoon I have been out in the garden harvesting the Thermidrome garlic. I've laid it out on wire racks (they were part of one of those mini greenhouses, long long ago) in the grow dome to dry out. The bulbs don't seem to have suffered too much from the rust, but whether or not they store (or look terrible under the mud) remains to be seen. I also still have to dig up the Porcelain garlic.

And I was right - I did plant too much garlic. Garlic recipes please!

Week 2: Articles 2 & 3


Growing amaranth. A gardening title, but a move into ornamentals rather than edibles.

A short review of Shrek the Third.

Yesterday was a day for dodging the rain and getting on with some garden maintenance tasks that I tend to put off (forget, really!).

Minarette fruit trees need pruning in summer to restrict their growth (there is a little bit of winter pruning as well for apples and pears). I should have already been pruning the cherry and the plum tree, but I forgot. After taking care of the ericaceous plants yesterday, the fruit trees were next on the list.

I don't like pruning. I don't really know what I'm doing and the instructions always appear to be written in some archaic form of the English language that no one speaks anymore. But once I've started I get into the swing of things and if you bear in mind the ultimate goal things tend to be fine. With minarettes the ultimate goal is to keep the tree shaped like a pole - it isn't given the chance to spread out into a proper tree shape, and is forced to make lots of short fruiting spurs each spring.

Once they have been pruned, the trees should put on new growth which will then have to be pruned. I need to remember to start pruning the apple and pear next month anyway, so it's not too much hassle. I've got some nice apples growing. There were some cherries, but most fell in the June drop, which is probably related to the weather. The pear and the plum weren't 'ready' to fruit this year apparently!

I have composted the prunings - they were mostly sappy so hopefully they will break down nicely over time.

The chickens inspected the work at all stages (my 'orchard' is now in their play pen) and didn't see fit to pass comment, so I think it's OK :o)

Gardening magazines and centres tend to tell you that blueberries are easy to grow in containers, if you don't have the necessary acidic soil to grow them in the ground.

I haven't found this to be true. Of my original two plants, one died at the end of the first year. The other is hanging in there, but it doesn't look good. I have 3 new ones, and 3 cranberries, and they're looking OK but today I have been taking special care of all of them.

As recommended, my plants are growing in ericaceous compost. I only water them with rainwater, and they need copious amounts of water (not a problem this summer!). I fed them with organic ericaceous feed tablets in the spring. Today I have applied sulphur chips to keep the pH of the compost down, and fed them again - they should be enjoying a second flush of growth about now.

In my experience, blueberries aren't the sort of plants that will tell you they're in trouble. They will simply go to sleep over the winter, and not wake up. Or you'll be left with a couple of twigs and leaves and a plant clinging to life.

I'm not trying to put you off, simply to be realistic - if you're into low maintenance gardening then don't try growing blueberries in containers!

Week 2: article 1

The coldest place on Earth, another science title.

I've also had a second piece accepted by Permaculture Magazine, but I don't know when either will be published so I will have to keep you posted.

Does anyone know what this mystery plant might be? My friend James has it growing where he expected sunflowers and has asked me to identify it. Beyond the fact that the flowers look a bit like brassica flowers, I'm stumped. Can anyone else do better?

The chickens love their new run extension (we call it the Play Pen) but they weren't so keen on yesterday's innovation: the Leaf Beet Piñata.

They've had things tied to the run for them before, so I think it must just have been that I tied this one in the doorway (it was easier) and that freaked them out. I took it down and they chomped through the leaf beet in no time.

Growing peas and peashoots is the subject of this week's episode. Check out Daughter of the Soil, an excellent blog on growing heritage peas and pea breeding experiments, with great photos.

There's a chance to win some pea and oriental vegetable seeds from Victoriana Nursery Gardens and a short gardening story from Greenprints magazine.

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Green Thumb Sunday: Orange

All my own work this week - the nasturtiums are growing one of the raised beds and the marigolds are keeping my tomatoes company in the windowboxes out front.









Join Green Thumb Sunday or check out the other participants.

I was a bit disappointed when the bag of home-made compost that I left in the grow dome turned out to have a huge ants nests in it - but the chickens weren't. It's rather therapeutic to watch the ants scurrying around, trying to avoid being pecked up. Princess Layer is better at ant eating than Hen Solo, too, so it's nice to see her enjoying something without too much interference.



Whilst they were enjoying their treat, I dragged another bag of compost up to the grow dome and planted up my two watermelon seedlings. I don't know if they will come to anything - probably not if the sun doesn't come out soon - but they're pretty plants.

New Internationalist magazine are doing an issue on permaculture. If you can't get hold of a copy, it will be available on their website in a few months. In the meantime, you can listen to their podcast on the subject.