Vertical potato bed

At the community gardens, we had some spare potatoes so we have decided to try a vertical bed.

We weeded the ground underneath, and put one of our wire compost bins on top of the soil. On that, we put a chimney of compost and soil, with a surround of hay. We then put about 3 levels of 3-4 potatoes, finishing off with around 8 in the top layer.

We watered it well, and will start to put kitchen scraps in and will tip the grey water into the middle to keep it watered.

Will update later in the season.

Leek/garlic grass?

So - I am only blogging new or interesting stuff, you don't want the same old nonsense each year right?

So - new developments.

My Leek/garlic grass. I seem to have bred a new thing. It has come from a bunching onion, which I think may have crossed with something else and the resulting well, result - is garlic grass.

I thought it WAS grass, and went to pull it out last year. To find it smelt of garlic. As it gets bigger, it grows to what we would call over here 'baby leek' size, and it looks like a baby leek. But it tastes of garlic. It grows bulbils on the stems and once it flowers it set seeds and grows new bunches like chives would. Some pics above. It is marvellously mild, delicious raw in salads and potato dishes and I love it! In the pics it is growing in amongst one of my garden beds, with nigella, Szechuan pepper, strawberries, parsley and poppies.