It’s been cold and windy these first days of May. The wind blew away the blossom from the large cherry in a gale that one can imagine picking up our book shed,…

There’s garlic and garlic and there’s garlic. All tasting and smelling of garlic, but from different plants, closely related, mostly alliums. There’s the garlic we are familiar with in the kitchen, Allium…

I was surprised to find stitchwort (Stellaria holostea) in the garden. It’s a wild flower common in country hedgerows and woodlands this time of year, but I don’t recall seeing it around…

The sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) leaves are just coming out and with them the flowers. The latter are green which might lead one to think they are wind pollinated, as insect pollinated flowers…

It has been cold the last week, with frost on some mornings. Cold slows living processes. We, ourselves, are warm blooded but have to swaddle up on cold days and warm our…

We had lots of rain in the first weeks of March, and then it stopped completely; the rest of the month was dry and hot, with temperatures up to 24ºC. So the…

Spring will not be denied. It is everywhere in the garden. The equinox was last Saturday, when night and day are equal, in the crossover as the days stretch out to summertime.…

We don’t use herbicides or pesticides in the community garden. Diseased plants, we prune if possible and suffer a few losses. Artificial chemicals kill off more than the pests that they target,…

When I came into the garden yesterday, the wind was blowing a gale. The plastic sheeting covering the half-completed flats next door was thrashing like a loose sail. A number of chairs…

Forest Gate Community Garden is planning for when we can open for visitors. This month, volunteers will be tidying the garden, planting, and generally sprucing up for what we hope will be…