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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.

3-Cornered leek

You’d be hard-pressed to find a kitchen garden that didn’t contain any members of the onion tribe, as onions, leeks, garlic and chives are all well-known plants that are invaluable in the kitchen. In earlier episodes of the Alternative Kitchen Show we’ve heard all about growing garlic, Welsh onions and onions and shallots, but in this episode we’re looking at some more unusual (and perennial) members of the Allium family.

AKG Correspondents Robb and Jacqui from the Sustainable Living Project are here to tell us about Allium vineale (Crow Garlic), which grows wild in their garden and adds to the productivity of their garden.

I’ve been gradually adding alliums to my garden – so far I have 3-cornered leek (A. triquetrium), Ramsons (A. ursinum), Babington’s leek (A. ampeloprasum var. babingtonii) and Walking Onions (A. cepa proliferum). I also have the allium herbs – Chives (A. schoenoprasum), Garlic Chives (A. tuberosum) and Siberian Chives (A. nutans).

Others to try include Ramps (A. tricoccum), Rocambole (A. scorodoprasum), Potato Onions (A. cepa aggregatum), the nodding onion (A. cernuum), Daffodil garlic (A. neopolitanum) and Rakkyo (A. chinense).

The show is rounded off by AKG Correspondent Thomas telling about the Compost Composium he recently attended, and a quick look at a new project I’m going to be starting soon – blogging a book called The Peat-Free Diet.

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