What Can I Use Lemon Balm For?
I really wish everything grew as fast as my lemon balm plant.
I dug this speedy herb up from my mate’s dad Bob’s garden last summer. The plant had rooted itself a few yards from another one, so I nicked Bob’s trowel and lifted it for home. The plant fitted into the palm of my hand, and I had no idea what I was to use lemon balm for, but I was on a herb mission, and it was free.
Since, then my lemon balm has gone nuts. The plant is huge, towering over every other herb in the patch. There are two reasons for this: one, its growing at a faster rate than even my feed-every-hour monster of a baby boy, and two, all the other herbs get used a lot more.
Until recently, I’d never used my lemon balm plant. All I’d done so far was gaily rejoice in the lovely citrus smell after a rain shower. However, things have to change. I can’t have a plant taking up valuable space without any return. The time has come for the lemon balm to start pulling its weight.
Everything is Well Behind – Or Is it?
Yesterday, I was talking to the manager of our local park, and he reckons everything is about a month behind this year. This chimed with me, as I’ve been getting worried about the slow progress of my veg. Everything feels well adrift from where it should be.
Normally I’m panicking about getting everything out by the beginning of June, but not this year. My tomatoes are still only a few inches high and the squashes and courgettes are still small. I did put some French beans went out this week, and boy are they sulking about it. Times are tough.
Well, at least I think they are…
The Diary of Fan Trained Greengage
Along with my asparagus from seed project, this is the second Real Men Sow long term, dynamic, could take years to complete posts. Its about trying to train a maiden greengage tree into a fan, and all being well I should be eating greengages and asparagus in about 4 years. Or not, if it all goes wrong.
July 18th 2013
When I first introduced my new growing space, The Patch From Scratch, I stuck up a picture of The Ugly Wall. Initially I’d decided that the space is perfect for compost bins, as well as a important breathing space where I can temporarily store bags of weeds or a small pile of manure. Trouble was, that was never going to be very pretty, so I was left searching for other ideas to jazz up the horrible wall.
In 2007, I took on a redundant allotment plot with my gardening-mad mum Jan. As all good mums do, she went along with it, but I don’t think she held out much hope.
During 2011, I kept a diary of how much money I save from growing my own fruit and vegetables.
After totalling all my outgoings, I saved approximately £500 over the year.
I made a spreadsheet to calculate these savings - it’s nothing too complicated, as I’m no Excel guru, but hopefully someone else will find it as useful (and strangely fun) as me.
For more info,