I've been growing veggies out in the garden, that much is known. I've also been trying my hand at growing mushrooms. I love mushrooms as a food, but I'd always kept my distance from any knowledge of how they're grown, for fear of grossing myself out a little too much to enjoy them on my plate. But, a few weeks ago, me and my Dad found some easy-as-you-like mushroom growing kits in a DIY shop in Denbigh. The kit consisted of a polystyrene box, filled with some straw-like stuff and a bag of compost. The instructions indicated to store the compost and straw at separate temperatures for a couple of weeks, then to cover the straw with the compost, lift the lid and leave in a cool place. Mushrooms were promised after another couple of weeks. Indeed, three crops of mushrooms are promised.

Well, after following the instructions diligently, it seems my first crop is here!

I had some for dinner last night, and they tasted really good. It really did mess with my mind a little, eating something which has been growing in amongst some mouldy compost in my under-the-stairs cupboard, but I guess this is me getting in touch with where mushrooms come from. Not everything's as glamorous as apples and blossom.

I think that the production of compost has to be one of the nearest things to magic that exists in the world.

I was lucky enough that upon moving into my house, nine months ago, the previous owners left two almost empty compost bins behind in the garden. Ever since then I've been adding my raw vegetable scraps, tea bags, coffee and the odd bit of paper and cardboard too. One of the bins had filled up by late last year, and except for a bit of turning with a fork, I've left it be since. This week, I opened it up to see what was going on inside.

And wow, all those onion peel scraps and carrot heads have completely dissapeared. There wasn't a single tea bag in sight. Instead - and to be honest I wasn't really expecting the whole thing to work - was some rather good looking brown compost, all evenly mixed up!

Until now I've been buying compost to add to the soil in my vegetable patch but this was an opportunity too good to waste. So this evening, taking advantage of the ever increasing hours of daylight, I knocked together a compost sieve out of some old wood and a bit of mesh (instructions here), and started sieving the compost out into the wheelbarrow.

The result... lovely fine warm compost.

Considering that this stuff costs a fair bit of money at the garden centre, this is a rather cool way of getting it for free I think!

So, I've got some tomatoes growing nicely, but they're taking up rather a large area of my breakfast room right now. I'm also starting off a few runner beans indoors. I'm running out of room!

This weekend then, I decided to have a go at building a small lean-to greenhouse in which to grow them. These things can cost quite a bit of money (as much as £400) if you buy them ready-made, which I don't have spare right now. Plus, I always quite liked the idea of being able to build something like this myself. People always say that the more effort you put into growing your food, the better it tastes!

I feel quite pleased with myself.

...after ten days.

Spring, it seems, is here. We're having the proverbial March winds aplenty, and the the bulbs I stuck in the ground last autumn have popped up to hail its coming.

So, last weekend I took the opportunity to get going on this year's growings. Last year, despite not moving into my house until June, I planted some rocket, runner beans and radishes. Nether of the latter two worked out particularly well, but the rocket was fantastic and we ended up with large amounts of rocket pesto!

Well, this year I'm a little more planned, and have planted a few seeds already. Tomatoes have gone into trays, and basil and sage are now in pots. For the basil and sage, poking a few holes in some old falafel packages has made the perfect containers.

My books have told me that spinach, on the other hand, can be sown out early, so I've put a row of that into my patch out in the back garden.

For a while now, I've been wanting to grow garlic, but unfortunately I'm still very much a novice at this and didn't realise that it was supposed to be planted around the end of December! Again, one of my books tells me that it can be planted out in the Spring, but only if you don't expect to get much from them until late in the year. Let's hope.

I'm finding that this growing vegetables think is an incredibly satisfying thing to do.

We went away to Menorca for a fortnight just recently, and to be honest I was a little hesitant at leaving the little things unattended for two weeks, and wondered what I would find upon our return. Fantastically, the rocket and radishes are doing incredibly well. Not that I really know too much about how you're supposed to grow vegetables, but I think I'm supposed to "thin them out" about now, to allow them room to grow.

The runner beans were a little less successful, but are just about germinating. I now have five little shoots sticking up out of the soil, so I'm still hopeful. Two small holes along the line lead me to believe that a bird or squirrel got a couple of the seeds though.

The small tree in the photo is a bay, which provides those leaves you can use in cooking. I've decided that I'm all for edible gardens and I've even realised recently that the leaves on my small birch tree are supposed to be quite good. Haven't tried any yet though...

Last weekend, having the first sunny Saturday in quite a long time here, we decided to get out into the garden and try to make something of the place. The first task was to move the shed. Though it is very useful, it was right in the middle of the garden, and occupying prime growing-stuff ground. Sheds however, are somewhat heavy, to say the least, and the job wasn't easy.

To cut a long story short, after a good three hours, we'd moved it to the raised bit at the back of the garden with only a small amount of damage taken to the shed. Our arms, on the other hand, are a different story.

The impetus for this was our desire to have a go at growing our own vegetables. I know, before anyone says anything that it's already late in the season to be planting things, but we only moved in a few weeks ago, and didn't want to wait until next year to get started. Besides, I'm reliably informed that certain crops can be grown well into the season. This largely informed our final choice: rocket, radishes and runner beans. Yum.

Well, it's now only five days later and the rocket and radishes have sprung already! This is going to be fun...