Posted 15/02/08 

 Photo by Ben Foster of the Eden Project

For the first time, the Eden Project is offering the chance to learn gardening from its team of skilled horticulturists.

Eden has teamed up with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh to offer a course in practical horticulture for keen amateurs.

 

The curriculum was largely devised by RBGE. The initial courses will be taught by a combination of RBGE and Eden staff with later courses taught solely by Eden’s green team.  read more »

The carrot (Daucus carota) belongs to the umbel family which includes the parsnip and the parsleys. Here’s a definitive guide to growing your own...

Abiennial vegetable, the carrot, if left in the earth over winter, will flower the following summer producing delightfully complex white flower heads. Its taproot (a main root descending downward from the radicle and giving off small lateral roots) is one of our body’s principal sources of carotene, which is a precursor
of vitamins A and D, eye pigments and many biochemical reactions in the body. It’s also rich in nutritious sugars, dietary fibre, antioxidants and minerals.  read more »

The good old potato (Solanum tuberosum) is for me, and probably the majority of folk, their preferred staple source for dietary carbohydrates due to its versatility.

Of the thousands of potato varieties that are still cultivated in the Andes, relatively few are available in the UK.

They are conventionally divided into four categories:
First earlies
Second earlies
Early maincrop
Maincrop  read more »

Now that days are getting shorter and the temperature is cooling down, it is easy to think that there is not much that can be grown in a garden in winter but this, in many regions, is just not true.

With a greenhouse or polytunnel, of course, a good variety of greens can be grown all year round and with a bit of heating – I used to have a little wood
stove – a lot can be achieved.  read more »