Turnip
The Ranch: Spring hurtles in, full throttle, thwarted by snowy East-Beast snaps. It's been a funny old winter. Blue Monday [...]
Earth, water, fire and air
Ranch: Summer went, giving way to a musky autumn with the first frost already delivered a couple of weeks ago on [...]
Another reset
Ranch: I have an impressive 4cm double-furrowed cut across the top of my forehead, courtesy of barbed wire – an inevitable [...]
A triumphant February beginning
Ranch: In the grey midwinter, a tawdry clinging cold pervades, yet spring heralds in the shape of brand new electric-green hawthorn [...]
Wassailing?
Ranch: Christmas and New Year have been and gone and now if ever, is the time for January blues. We had [...]
Everything is Energy and Plan C
The Ranch: ...Is dismal in its cold clinging greyness and seemingly endless slutchy muddy wet. As I walk round, jobs beckon [...]
Intellectual curiosity and the spirit of critical thinking
Ranch: For the benefit of my new readers, 'The Ranch' is the name I jokingly gave to my allotment many years [...]
Unsubscribing and a new beginning
The Ranch: I’m on the ranch in demi-shed A. It’s raining. The long late run of balmy September sunshine has come [...]
Harvest Moon
The Ranch: A basky balmy sordid humid heat intoxicates me for weeks and I'm relieved when it's over and the rains [...]
Shed joy
The Ranch: It rained properly on Thursday night and I swear that the plants all grew an extra couple of inches [...]
Duties of a Doctor?
The Ranch: It’s raining. It started around 3am and is now just fizzling out at 6am. It wasn’t much, but exciting [...]
Don’t mess with the kids
Salutation to the dawn: The chorus begins at half-past three with a funny sounding bird whose song I don’t recognise – [...]
May day and the thousand pound tomato
Ranch: Hazy warm sunshine dawns after a frostier than ever April and early May. Of course the English weather obsessives have [...]
Starry night
The Ranch: High gardening season has crept up quietly. Now, with a few exceptions (beans and squashes) it's time to plant, [...]
Noble Art
Ranch: As a child, I remember arranging my pillows round my head and imagining that I was in an aeroplane [...]
Revolution of the reasonable
The Ranch: A freeze serendipitously embraces the New Year period. A raw, bruised, brutal beauty embraces the ranch. A blanket [...]
A solstice celebration
Ranch: On Monday I'm exhausted. The last thing I feel like doing is going to the ranch. Who else is [...]
Vaccus
Ranch: I feel so grateful to live on the edge of a big park, with a wonderful Elizabethan Hall and museum [...]
Christmas tree butt plug?
... and baking bread: The cosmic cycle rolls on, as day is barely distinguishable from night. It's been an [...]
How science can help the ordinary gardener
Ranch: I haven't had much time to get up there this week. However, even a couple of hours at a time, [...]
How to grow your own food during a pandemic – anyone can do it – 10 tips GalleryHow to grow your own food during a pandemic – anyone can do it – 10 tips
Common ground, coronavirus, Emergency Medicine, Friends and family, NHS, older post, organic gardening, Science, self-sufficiency, tree planting, wellness, work life balance
How to grow your own food during a pandemic – anyone can do it – 10 tips
Earth, water, air, fire: That's it. That's the secret. That's the answer. That's how to do it. The four [...]
Fenny
The Ranch: ... is a clay one-and-a-half acre hillside organic plot in the North of England. At the moment it's [...]
Tip-toeing, tapestry and The Law
The Ranch: It's me and the trees. I walk through the park and they are putting on their annual autumn [...]
Common ground and the House of Turds.
Wheels: Northwards! Along the bypass. Past the college. Past the toll-house. Past the tower on the hill on the right. [...]
Rioting for beginners
The Ranch - May has been and gone - my all-time favourite month. Hot, hot, hot and heady. Now we [...]
Valerian and beans
Certain events punctuate the gardening season. Valerian flowering is one of them and planting out the beans is another. The [...]
The best, the worst. Corvus corone!
I'm sitting in the green plastic chair, capturing a transient moment of March sunshine. A bee lands close by [...]
Fig fiend, potato blight, emergency medicine and science.
Ranch: Summer has tumbled into autumn, with a brief late-summer hot and sunny reprieve which has given way to North-west lashing [...]