Mustard greens are very popular in China for stir-fry, and mostly used cooked. The oriental mustards are a very large group of rather coarse-leaved brassicas, usually having a spicy flavour. The m ... … Read more

Keep sowing those seeds! I know I said it in a previous mail/blog post, but I feel I should again remind you to keep sowing seeds for late summer, autumn or overwintering crops. I know it doe ... … Read more

Perfectly healthy plants can be affected by air, water or soil borne diseases at any time. Understanding the causes, identifying them early and taking effective action will help you establish and ... … Read more

Broad beans are the simplest thing to grow. They are hardy and produce a large crop of delicious beans. I prefer to pick them young for a sweeter bean which are lovely tossed into a salad. … Read more

O.K., so you've managed to produce your own seedling plants or have bought in some promising looking specimens. You have hardened them off and are ready to put them out into your garden (or i ... … Read more

I am not sure what it's like with you but we have had some real January weather over the weekend with some hard overnight frosts. A hard frost ads a touch of magic to the garden, with ice cryst ... … Read more

Pak Choi (also called bok choy) is a mild flavoured Oriental vegetable in the same family as Chinese cabbage, Tatsoi and Wong Bok which are all grown the same way. Pak Choi can be eaten raw, stir ... … Read more

We have a treat for you this month as Niall has put his head above the literary parapet and written an article! In answer to one of our facebook queries Niall has agreed to impart what chicken kn ... … Read more

Top ten list of the easiest vegetables to grow for the beginner gardener. Our list of easy to grow vegetables all have a good chance of first time success and will give you the skills you need to ... … Read more

Growing Peppers Peppers and chillis are expensive when bought in the shops so growing your own is an economical exercise which also brings great pleasure. They are tropical plants and therefore app ... … Read more

I do love the colour of beetroot, its glorious deep fuschia just makes me feel good looking at it. Add chickpeas, oil, garlic, lemon and some ground cumin in the blender and I still see that wonder ... … Read more

If you have read any of our previous blog posts you will know that we are rather spoiled at Quickcrop with our large rural gardens with plenty of room to grow in. If you have a smaller urban garden a ... … Read more

July in the garden is a bit of a double edged sword, Mother nature shows her muscles both in the vigourous growth from your vegetable crops but also in the vigourous growth from your weeds. While you ... … Read more

I don't know what it has been like for you, but March has been a relatively dry month in my garden which meant I was able to do a bit more outside than I normally would. While I write ... … Read more

Unusually for me I found myself in not one, but two fancy restaurants at the weekend (it was my Mother's birthday) both of which presented me with pea shoots perched on top of my dinner. It got me ... … Read more

As someone who makes a lot of mistakes, I have to say I absolutely love a clean slate. I can literally drag myself to the end of the year yet emerge completely transformed once the calendar rolls aro ... … Read more

Well, hello there folks. That's been a strange couple of weeks hasn't it? I apologise for the late mail but I have had the luminous vest on since last week as I've been packing orders in the warehous ... … Read more

As we move towards the beginning of May, things really start to move in the vegetable garden. Up until this point there have been very few seeds we can sow outside or seedlings we can plant out but t ... … Read more

I had a call from Dermot Carey (my personal vegetable guru) over the weekend as he wanted to pick up a couple of rolls of fleece. "I hope you don't mind me calling on a Sunday morning" says Dermot "N ... … Read more

Last week I touched on succession sowing and said I would include my plan for this year and, being very organised these days (new years resolution), I am pleased to include it below. Not all of the p ... … Read more

One of the key differences between growing plants inside and growing them outside in your garden is that indoor plants don’t benefit from rainfall. As such, irrigation becomes even more importa ... … Read more

While a greenhouse shouldn’t need to be cleaned quite as much as a 'human house', it is very important to schedule a good cleaning session once or twice a year. Ideal times for carrying out ... … Read more

If you were alive 144 million years ago, you wouldn't need to worry about providing winter food for wild birds, because you would have been on the menu yourself. It might be hard to believe whe ... … Read more

Runner beans, or 'scarlet runners', are native to central and northern South America, where they were seen as one of the 'Three Sisters', a famous companion planting growing technique.Runner beans ar ... … Read more

The rewilding movement has picked up pace and momentum in recent years. In short, the idea behind rewilding is that we humans take a step back and allow nature to reclaim large or small areas of lan ... … Read more

Whatever about sowing onions, broad beans or other early crops in February, it isn't until tomato sowing time that I get properly excited. That is when the season really gets going. … Read more

Sowing French Bean - Climbing Recommended varieties: Cobra. You can sow climbing french beans indoors from the middle of May to plant out later or sow outdoors at the end of May. Be aware that Fre ... … Read more

In answer to a number of queries on how to get started as a new vegetable gardener here's a few of my top tips to get you going: What do you like eating? This might sound like a silly ques ... … Read more

Parsnips are easy to grow members of the cow parsley family. This family includes carrot, dill, fennel and parsley among others. These seeds tend to have a short period of viability, so new packet ... … Read more

This March I am starting a new monthly update project which is centered more around what I'm doing in my garden. This is because it's easier for me to write but also I hope you find it more engagin ... … Read more

Mothers Day 2015 Mothers Day 2015 is on sunday the 15th of March in Ireland. It is one of those days that lands on a different date each year, which is why it is easily forgotten about.&n ... … Read more

Climbing peas and beans are some of my favourite crops in the vegetable garden. They epitomise summer with their attractive flowers and lush growth. There is something 'active' about them with their ... … Read more

Cleaning: not the best fun in the world, but it has to be done. Fortunately a polytunnel doesn’t have to be cleaned too often. Once a year is generally sufficient, and the best time of year to ... … Read more

I asked my wife Siobhan to have a go at documenting her chutney making endeavours with the following results, go Siobhan!The English made chutneys their own after the traders brought back these exoti ... … Read more

Hi folks, I hope everyone had a good weekend. I don't know what the weather is like with you but we finally had a beautiful summer weekend with plenty of heat and sunshine. It has been a woefully slo ... … Read more

We had a number of questions recently on polytunnel growing: particularly whether polytunnels are worth the investment and whether it is true that they enable year-round growing, so I figured I ... … Read more

I'm not sure what the weather is like where you are but it has been dry in the Quickcrop garden for the last week, which means the soil is dry enough to work. As you probably know, digging saturat ... … Read more

Here at Quickcrop HQ we propagate large amounts of vegetable seedlings in the early spring, so we need some heat to get them going. Clearly a heated propagator or heat mat isn't really practical whe ... … Read more

The greenhouse has a long and interesting history. Did you know that a proto-greenhouse structure was designed by the Romans to support Emperor Tiberius's one-cucumber-a-day habit? Or that the ... … Read more

England, like any country, has its pro's and con's but I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I discovered many pubs over there are furnished with an enormous glass jar of pickled eggs at the e ... … Read more

I have been spending more time in the Quickcrop nursery recently, as myself and Mags have been stock taking and working on some new cut flower seedling trays. At the end of last season, Mag ... … Read more

A polytunnel can really open up a world of growing possibilities, extending the growing season, providing extra shelter and increasing your chances of success with warm climate crops.  However, ... … Read more

What kinds of things can you do in the garden at this time of year. It’s not quite Spring after all? Well, no, we’ve still a long way to go before we get to Spring. This time of year is really a ... … Read more

Garden Update I am making some progress in the garden this week with a few tips coming to mind which hopefully you will find helpful.The first tip I have is get a tractor! Readers from last Autumn m ... … Read more

I mentioned a couple of mails ago that we would be adding a new flowering plant section to our website but as usual I am a bit behind. We have been growing some very nice nursery stock (available now ... … Read more

I have a soft spot for peas. They are easy to sow, look beautiful, are fascinating to observe as they climb and, of course, have a delicious sweet flavour. They are an active, friendly and tactile cr ... … Read more

As you know my top priority is keeping you happy so when I noticed a sunny spell outside the office window I sped over to the Quickcrop garden to take some photos. I was concerned, you see, that you ... … Read more

Sowing and planting too early in the year We can all get a little over excited when the new year comes around especially if, like now, we've had relatively warm Winter so far. We can all be guil ... … Read more

When it comes to watering the vegetable garden, convenience and automation has a lot going for it, but it’s not the be all and end all. Being a gardening ‘luddite’ whose weapon of choice is a ... … Read more

Persuading children to eat vegetables can be a task and a half. It’s not just stubbornness either: research shows that kids’ taste buds are simply more receptive to sweet foods. And let’s be ho ... … Read more

Researching the benefits of drinking wheatgrass juice has to be one of the most challenging tasks as opinions vary wildly from one side to the other. The problem for me is that the more ardent suppor ... … Read more

Tomatoes are one of the most rewarding crops for the home gardener to grow, simply because their flavour is so much better than their shop-bought cousins. Tomatoes grown for the supermarket shel ... … Read more

Whatever style of greenhouse you opt for - whether it’s a ‘lean-to’, a compact house or a larger one - it will open up new possibilities for you and extend your growing season. It’s also a very ... … Read more

When you’re just starting on your food-growing journey, it’s probably best to be a little selective about what you’re planning to grow. There are some food crops that can prove to be surprising ... … Read more

Home composting is a fantastic way of killing two birds with one stone. You can process garden and kitchen waste (and reduce your bin collection costs) while at the same time producing your ... … Read more

So, how is everyone feeling with the improvement in the weather? I for one am feeling pretty good about it. I don't know what the temperatures were like where you are, but it was wonderfully wa ... … Read more

While I do spend plenty of happy time in the garden in January there really isn't a whole lot you can do other than preparing things for the season ahead. In may cases I will be tempted to start a ... … Read more

As September is one of the busiest harvesting months, this week I thought it might be helpful to talk about preserving or storing vegetables over winter as, if your garden is anything like mine, you ... … Read more

I must admit I'm finding it a little difficult to write my usual enthusiastic post today as my garden isn't quite the paradise it normally is at this time of year. I don't know where you are but her ... … Read more

This week I thought I would concentrate on the polytunnel or greenhouse as there is a lot to be done in April both in terms of sowing new seed and in potting on tomato, chilli and sweet pepper plants ... … Read more

I guess it is important to say from the outset that herbs are very easy to grow. Considering what they add in flavour and how often you will use them they are probably the best value plants in the ga ... … Read more

The number of people having a go at producing some of there own fresh produce is on the increase every year. The latest revolution is the small space urban gardener, who takes advantage of every ... … Read more

In a perfect world, there’d be plenty of room for gardens, greenery and foliage to exist in harmony with us as we go about our day-to-day lives. However, urbanisation and increasing levels of populat ... … Read more

Having some kind of automatic system set up to irrigate your plants is beneficial for a number of reasons: It frees you up to take care of other garden tasks, as you no longer have to traip ... … Read more

A high yield vegetable is one that produces a large amount of end product per area of planting. ‘Output’ shouldn’t be seen as the be all and end all of growing your own food, but high yield vegetable ... … Read more

As I've mentioned in my bee article I have accidentally ended up with a hive of bees. This is all fine and well but clearly I need to learn a lot more about them to become a successful (and expert ... … Read more

I can't tell you how much of a relief it is that the weather has warmed a little and that there is no frost forecast for this week. As you may know I am filming our new vegetable growing course this ... … Read more

It is incredible just how fast the season slips by, I can't believe it's September already! The final part of the season got away from me a bit (broken collarbone) but luckily work done earlier ... … Read more

Well, it's August again in the Quickcrop garden (and elsewhere I suspect) so I thought we'd take our customary stroll around to see what's growing and hopefully offer some advice on some of my frui ... … Read more

As you know, September is about the final act in the vegetable garden when we harvest many of our crops and prepare the soil for winter. This week I have had a quick run around the garden to check in ... … Read more

Some very welcome rain The vegetable garden was beginning to get very dry over the last few weeks, so much so that I found myself out with the hose watering crops which can be a very tedious and tim ... … Read more

Cucumber plants are either vining varieties with long vines or bush varieties with shorter vines. Cucumbers may be planted in hills or grown on supports such as trellises, fences, or stakes. Choose v ... … Read more

Small Garden Ideas Vegetable growing should be available to anyone even if you have have a very small urban garden or worse, no garden at all! Small urban gardens can be just as productive as larger ... … Read more

Here begins Part 2 of our guide to vegetable harvesting, going in neat alphabetical order. Knowing when to harvest can be just as important in its own way as growing, tending to plants, irrigation ... … Read more

In recent years more and more households - both rural and urban - have decided to keep backyard chickens or poultry. As well as being a source of ‘homemade’ fresh eggs, it’s something tha ... … Read more

While I am not a fan of of winter I do enjoy preparing for it. There is great satisfaction in harvesting and storing crops in October, protecting beds from heavy rain and generally put ... … Read more

I can't believe I am already writing about the vegetable garden in August, where has all that time gone? I don't know what the weather is like where you are but we are seeing cooler, showery days whi ... … Read more

When we move towards the end of July and into early August, it can be easy to think that the time for sowing new crops has passed. To be fair that's true for most things, with the garden now in ... … Read more

A new year brings with it the temptation to try something new in the garden, overhaul your growing space or simply fine-tune the way that you do things. Garden planning is something you can d ... … Read more

The transition from May to June is a fantastic time in the vegetable garden as the crops you have planted or sown start to put on some proper growth and the garden starts to fill up. As you know I of ... … Read more

Those of you who are subscribed to our newsletter may already be familiar with this A-Z guide that I've been gradually putting together. It's easy to find sowing times for vegetables but sometimes it ... … Read more