Alex Grows Food

23/11/2024

Honoured to have won Garden Video of the Year at the Garden Media Guild Awards 2024. That's two years in a row!

It's been a particularly difficult year, was very stressful trying to get there on time and I was pulling my hair out through the ceremony with nerves but my video on mulching where I measured the water retention in the soil (link in bio) beat a very hotly contested field (including one featuring King Charles, no disrespect your majesty).

It's a lot of work being an untrained one-man production team and the (supposed) on-screen 'talent' too, and these videos take anywhere from a week to a month to plan, film and edit. I don't really make money from this so its very affirming to get this level of recognition.

The shortlists in every category were so competitive, it's great how strong and healthy garden media is. An amazing time to be a gardener. Thanks to the and everyone involved in arranging the awards or volunteers their time to judge all of the entries or publishes content of any kind.

Great to see everyone yesterday (sorry if I missed any of you) and hope to see you all again next year!

I've got a few videos in the planning stage, hope to get them to you in the new year.

07/06/2024

Sorry I've been quiet recently. On the 11th May we suffered an attack by an out of control dog and it killed one of the girls. She had lots of names but 'officially' I called her Number One because she hatched half a day ahead of the rest and she was my favourite. She's now buried under the apple tree with a yellow chard plant placed on top because they were her favourites.

This paragraph gets a little violent so skip it if you don't want to read it but I had to tackle and then wrestle the dog into submission. I was injured a little but the other chickens seemed to have escaped. I actually almost saved her but I saw blood fly past (and then land on me) moments before making contact. There was about half a second in it but I was too late. The dog resisted a lot but I landed on top of its bulk and managed to keep its head down so, through sheer luck, the risk to me was lowered pretty quickly.

But I think it's impacted me more than I realised and it's hard to create right now. The police messed up badly so I've spent most of the month trying to put them on the right track and speaking to solicitors about other costs and talking about it wipes me out. The owner is also a dog trainer - that irks me more than it should. I've also been hatching new chicks (you're really meant to have 3 minimum) and need to clear out a room in my house for them. It's been a lot.

Hope your gardens are doing well and the silly temperatures this year are working in your favour and you magically live in a slug-free zone - I managed to remove the weeds with just a strimmer and plant the tomatoes but the slugs... And if you know someone with a dog that would rather chase a bird than respond to it's name, make them put it on a lead. And thanks to those of you who reached out - I will reply to you.

HG

Alex

14/05/2024

Are slug barriers a waste of money? I tested a bunch to find out

I tested 7 natural slug control methods to find out if you really can use them to stop slugs or if they are just a waste of money. To find out if natural slu...

31/03/2024

Make your plastic greenhouse storm-proof with this comprehensive guide, combining tips from 100's of gardeners

Plastic greenhouses are a great way of extending your growing season on a budget - I own two of these: https://amzn.to/4cydM6z. But to get the most out of a ...

01/03/2024

It's March and you know what that means... It's time to start growing home grown food.

Here's a list of vegetable seeds to sow in March!

March is the busiest time of year for sowing vegetable seeds. With the last frost date getting close, it's time to start our plants so we can enjoy home grow...

04/02/2024

There might be *some* veg growing groups on here where people take issue with starting seeds before March.... They might even suggest going early is for the inexperienced and the naive.

Well, ignore them! They're wrong.

There's so much you can sow right now and, for some crops, it might even be getting on the late side. So here is my list of seeds that you should sow in February

February means seed sowing season can really kick off. While a lot of people say it's worth waiting until later, I disagree, you can sow so many seeds in Feb...

26/01/2024

Can you grow tomato seedlings under cheap LED grow lights WITHOUT them going leggy? I decided to run an experiment to find out...
https://wix.to/1yAppEz

Can you grow tomato seedlings under cheap LED grow lights? I ran an experiment to find out...

20/01/2024

Hungry for home-grown tomatoes?

Starting tomato plants indoors?

Then make sure your tomato seedlings have enough light to grow. In this video I test how much light tomato seedlings need, which varieties grow better under artificial lights and find out if cheap grow lights are powerful enough to stop your seedlings from going leggy.

Are cheap grow lights any good for the home-grower looking to extend their season and starting their tomato seedlings indoors? If you live in a cold climate ...