The Alternative Kitchen Garden is Emma's gardening podcast. You can listen to any or all of the episodes straight from your browser by clicking the play button on the fancy player.
If you want to automatically listen to the latest and future podcasts, you can subscribe in iTunes or with RSS. If you want access to the whole back catalogue archive (100+ episodes), you can also do that in iTunes or with RSS.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast, produced and presented by Emma Cooper, is all about growing edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. It is completely free to download and listen to.
For the first Alternative Kitchen Garden Show episode for 2012 I am once again opening my seed box to examine some of the forgotten treasures that lie within. And to mark the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, I have chosen plants with an oriental theme.
Find out about soy(a) beans, podding radishes, kintsai (Chinese celery), Stem lettuce, Chop suey greens, two distinctive aubergines and kiwis.
If, after listening to the show, you’re wondering about the recipe I mention then it’s Stem Lettuce Caesar from Ideas In Food. And I talked about chrysanthemum tea on the blog back in 2010.
Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter. If you’re interested in becoming an Alternative Kitchen Garden Correspondent then read the FAQ. You can also download the script for this episode as a PDF file.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast is released in good faith with Creative CommonsBY-NC-ND terms. You are free (and encouraged) to share, copy, distribute and transmit the podcast episodes providing you attribute them to Emma Cooper, don't use the episodes for commercial purposes and don't modify the episodes.For a full explanation of the licence, please see the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence details.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast, produced and presented by Emma Cooper, is all about growing edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. It is completely free to download and listen to.
In today’s installment of The Alternative Kitchen Garden Show our thoughts turn to seeds. You can see what goes on behind-the-scenes at the Millennium Seed Bank on the blog, where seeds arrive, seeds are processed for storage and seeds are germination tested. If you have a few spare pennies or cents then you can help support Kew’s work at the Millennium Seed Bank – The Alternative Kitchen Garden Seed Appeal is raising enough money to save an entire wild (edible!) plant species.
I have been clearing out my seed box and updating my seed database, so today I’m sharing some of my Unsown Treasures – seeds I had forgotten I have: Okahijiki (Salsola komarovii), Ice Plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum), Lemon bergamot (Monarda citriodora), Lab Lab beans (Dolichos lablab or Lablab purpureus) and Jicama (Pachyrrhizus erosus or Pachyrhizus tuberosus).
And our AKG Correspondent Thomas is back to show us around a community garden project in Melbourne, Australia. This is the composting area he describes in the show:
There’s still time to enter my Write Club 2011 guest post competition, which is running until the end of September, and of course you can take a look at all of the Write Club 2011 entries so far and vote for your favourites.
Leave me a comment, send me an email or join our Facebook group. You can get real time updates from the AKG on Twitter. If you’re interested in becoming an Alternative Kitchen Garden Correspondent then read the FAQ. You can also download the script for this episode as a PDF file.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast is released in good faith with Creative CommonsBY-NC-ND terms. You are free (and encouraged) to share, copy, distribute and transmit the podcast episodes providing you attribute them to Emma Cooper, don't use the episodes for commercial purposes and don't modify the episodes.For a full explanation of the licence, please see the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence details.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast, produced and presented by Emma Cooper, is all about growing edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. It is completely free to download and listen to.
Winter sown seeds in the cold frame
In this episode Emma talks about things to do in snowy gardens and winter sowing. To find out more about winter sowing, check out WinterSown.org and for more on sowing and harvesting crops throughout the winter have a look at What to sow in autumn & winter on the Real Seeds website. If you can’t see your garden under the snow then perhaps Indoor Salads would be more your thing at the moment!
Emma also kicks off her Edible Flowers project with winter sown capers and crimson flowered broad (fava) beans and continues her Tea project by sowing basil seeds.
We also have our first report from AKG Correspondents Robb and Jackie from the Sustainable Living Project. If you’re interested in becoming an Alternative Kitchen Garden Correspondent then read the FAQ. And if you’re looking for more information on the free book offer, then head over to the Green Shopping Catalogue.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast is released in good faith with Creative CommonsBY-NC-ND terms. You are free (and encouraged) to share, copy, distribute and transmit the podcast episodes providing you attribute them to Emma Cooper, don't use the episodes for commercial purposes and don't modify the episodes.For a full explanation of the licence, please see the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence details.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast, produced and presented by Emma Cooper, is all about growing edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. It is completely free to download and listen to.
This is a bumper episode, all about greenhouses and seed sowing. I cover why gardeners love having a greenhouse, how to decide whether or not to heat yours, how to sow seeds and what to do with excess seeds, and what you could be doing in your greenhouse throughout the year.
If you’re new to seed sowing then you may also like episode 5; episode 11 is all about caring for the resulting seedlings. I gave a tour around my greenhouse, the Grow Dome, in episode 49, and if you’re interested in getting the most out of an unheated greenhouse over winter then you should really check out my recent review of Eliot Coleman’s latest book – The Winter Harvest Handbook.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden is a free and ad-free podcast, but if you’d like to support the show and save money then check out my offers and coupons section.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast is released in good faith with Creative CommonsBY-NC-ND terms. You are free (and encouraged) to share, copy, distribute and transmit the podcast episodes providing you attribute them to Emma Cooper, don't use the episodes for commercial purposes and don't modify the episodes.For a full explanation of the licence, please see the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence details.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast, produced and presented by Emma Cooper, is all about growing edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. It is completely free to download and listen to.
Cornflower seeds
I’m catching up with my seed sowing, and marvelling at the shapes and sizes that seeds come in. Have a look at my seed photos on Flickr. And if seed morphology is something that interests you, keep an eye out for Seeds: Time Capsules of Life, an amazingly beautiful book by Rob Kesseler and Wolfgang Stuppy.
And if you haven’t already done so, please take a minute to choose your favourite AKG episodes so far, in my short survey.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden is a free and ad-free podcast, but if you’d like to support the show and save money then check out the great deals available on my offers and coupons blog.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast is released in good faith with Creative CommonsBY-NC-ND terms. You are free (and encouraged) to share, copy, distribute and transmit the podcast episodes providing you attribute them to Emma Cooper, don't use the episodes for commercial purposes and don't modify the episodes.For a full explanation of the licence, please see the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence details.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast, produced and presented by Emma Cooper, is all about growing edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. It is completely free to download and listen to.
I’ve been thinking ahead to next year’s garden, and buying some seeds and a few unusual plants.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast is released in good faith with Creative CommonsBY-NC-ND terms. You are free (and encouraged) to share, copy, distribute and transmit the podcast episodes providing you attribute them to Emma Cooper, don't use the episodes for commercial purposes and don't modify the episodes.For a full explanation of the licence, please see the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence details.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast, produced and presented by Emma Cooper, is all about growing edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. It is completely free to download and listen to.
There might not be much going on in the garden, but as February approaches the gardening community is gearing up for the events of the year – seed swaps.
If you listened to episode 28 on seed saving then you might have home-saved seed to swap this year, or you may just have some left over from last year!
Seed swaps are a great way to help conserve heirloom and heritage seed varieties. For more about those, listen to Patrick from Bifurcated Carrots in episodes 22, 23 and 24. You can also listen to an episode of BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme in which they visit Brighton’s famous Seedy Sunday. That link also shows some other seed swap events.
If you’re anywhere near Coventry you can check out Garden Organic’s seed swap at their Potato Day in Ryton Organic Gardens. Or you can check out one of the many internet gardening forums that hold seed swaps at this time of year.
If you end up with surplus seeds then you could consider donating them to a local school with a gardening project or to Thrive, the gardening charity that builds and maintains horticultural therapy gardens.
If you’re deaf or hard of hearing then you can download a PDF transcript of this show.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast is released in good faith with Creative CommonsBY-NC-ND terms. You are free (and encouraged) to share, copy, distribute and transmit the podcast episodes providing you attribute them to Emma Cooper, don't use the episodes for commercial purposes and don't modify the episodes.For a full explanation of the licence, please see the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence details.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast, produced and presented by Emma Cooper, is all about growing edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. It is completely free to download and listen to.
Welcome to new listeners who have found their way here from the show review on the Hippyshopper website.
This week’s show is on saving seeds from your garden and which plants are easiest for beginners to save seed from.
If you’re looking for a book on the subject, I can recommend Back Garden Seed Saving, a British book by Garden Organic’s Sue Stickland that explains the basics of seed saving and gives detailed instructions for saving seed for all common vegetables. It’s a good book for beginners.
Seed to Seed is a book by American author Suzanne Ashworth that is highly recommended (although I have yet to read it) and is more comprehensive if you’re looking to expand your seed-saving knowledge – it covers 160 different plants.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast is released in good faith with Creative CommonsBY-NC-ND terms. You are free (and encouraged) to share, copy, distribute and transmit the podcast episodes providing you attribute them to Emma Cooper, don't use the episodes for commercial purposes and don't modify the episodes.For a full explanation of the licence, please see the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence details.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast, produced and presented by Emma Cooper, is all about growing edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. It is completely free to download and listen to.
Green manures are a way to improve the soil in your garden without using artificial fertilizers or animal products. They also prevent leaching, soil compaction and weed growth.
Learn which green manures can be sown now and into the autumn, to overwinter in your garden.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast is released in good faith with Creative CommonsBY-NC-ND terms. You are free (and encouraged) to share, copy, distribute and transmit the podcast episodes providing you attribute them to Emma Cooper, don't use the episodes for commercial purposes and don't modify the episodes.For a full explanation of the licence, please see the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence details.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast, produced and presented by Emma Cooper, is all about growing edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. It is completely free to download and listen to.
Episode 23 is jam-packed with goodies. I talk about seeds you can sow now and in the next few weeks, to give you crops from autumn right through until early spring.
Patrick is back with the second installment of his talk on heirloom vegetables and Rebsie joins us to share her love of beetroot.
And Madeleine is back with her guide to preserving garden herbs.
The Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast is released in good faith with Creative CommonsBY-NC-ND terms. You are free (and encouraged) to share, copy, distribute and transmit the podcast episodes providing you attribute them to Emma Cooper, don't use the episodes for commercial purposes and don't modify the episodes.For a full explanation of the licence, please see the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence details.
