How to grow a chilli with your kind of kick

Bring on some warmth by sowing chillis. There are hundreds of varieties and strengths, and decorative ones, too

The first signs of spring might well be weeks, if not months, away, so for those impatient for warmer days ahead there is one summer crop you can get sowing right now: chillies.

Despite having grown up in southeast Asia, where we can eat chillies three times a day, it wasn’t until I moved to the UK that I really became fascinated by the enormous array of weird and wonderful varieties out there, especially from small, indie growers. With literally hundreds of varieties, in an almost infinite variety of flavour, use and spice-level, I believe there must be a chilli for everyone – even people who think they don’t like chillies! So here’s my rundown of niche varieties you will never be able to buy in stores.

Continue reading...

from Home And Garden | The Guardian https://ift.tt/38QBOYX
via IFTTT

How to grow a chilli with your kind of kick

Bring on some warmth by sowing chillis. There are hundreds of varieties and strengths, and decorative ones, too

The first signs of spring might well be weeks, if not months, away, so for those impatient for warmer days ahead there is one summer crop you can get sowing right now: chillies.

Despite having grown up in southeast Asia, where we can eat chillies three times a day, it wasn’t until I moved to the UK that I really became fascinated by the enormous array of weird and wonderful varieties out there, especially from small, indie growers. With literally hundreds of varieties, in an almost infinite variety of flavour, use and spice-level, I believe there must be a chilli for everyone – even people who think they don’t like chillies! So here’s my rundown of niche varieties you will never be able to buy in stores.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/38QBOYX
via IFTTT

Mystery bulbs mean spring will be a bigger surprise

Green shoots, obsessive checking – and the longed-for hope of the first signs of the growing season

I grew up in a magical land of meadow snowdrops, woodland bluebells and hedgerow primroses. There were riverside banks of wild garlic, which I loved for the flowers but was repelled by the smell – it was a sheltered English 60s childhood in very rural Devon.

I guess I have been a bit sniffy about growing bulbs in pots ever since, though it has been many years since we had our own flower garden. Winter pots on the roof terrace were for green leaf, multiple shades and colours of hellebore.

Continue reading...

from Home And Garden | The Guardian https://ift.tt/36pAcUk
via IFTTT

May I have a word about… why even estate agents don’t deserve to be shuttered | Jonathan Bouquet

It’s terrible news that shops are closing down all over the country, but we don’t need an ugly word for the process

I have never felt the need to address the subject of estate agents. True, theirs is a despised calling, as my daughter discovered when she briefly became one and had instant pariah status bestowed on her. But reading about the lack of office space in the City, I began to share some of the revulsion.

According to Mat Oakley, the head of commercial property research at Savills: “It is going to be a very tough year for office tenants. If you’ve bought into wellness and ESG [environmental, social and governance] and productivity, you obviously want the best of the best – you want accessible buildings, you want buildings that your staff can work flexibly.” I think, reading between the lines, this means that clients want the most space for the least amount of money.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2tHRoqV
via IFTTT

Mystery bulbs mean spring will be a bigger surprise

Green shoots, obsessive checking – and the longed-for hope of the first signs of the growing season

I grew up in a magical land of meadow snowdrops, woodland bluebells and hedgerow primroses. There were riverside banks of wild garlic, which I loved for the flowers but was repelled by the smell – it was a sheltered English 60s childhood in very rural Devon.

I guess I have been a bit sniffy about growing bulbs in pots ever since, though it has been many years since we had our own flower garden. Winter pots on the roof terrace were for green leaf, multiple shades and colours of hellebore.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/36pAcUk
via IFTTT

What happens to my mortgage if I break up with my partner? Nottingham Estate Agents

Around a quarter of new mortgage approvals are now based on a couple’s joint earnings so financial issues involving a relationship break-up are extremely common. Relationship break-ups are sadly a fact of life. They can be messy and if the couple breaking up are living together, and co-signatories to a mortgage, the messiness can increase […]

The post What happens to my mortgage if I break up with my partner? appeared first on OnTheMarket.com blog.

from OnTheMarket.com blog https://ift.tt/2LSlivm
via IFTTT

Essence of jasmine: fragrant memories of childhood, love, and comfort

Used in many Thai desserts, woven into leis and offered up in prayers, jasmine sambac is easily used in a heavenly sweet scented beverage

It took us two years to find our house. I wasn’t looking for a house so much as I was looking for space to liberate the roots of all the potted fruit trees, vegetables and herbs I had accumulated which moved from rental house to rental house with us. They certainly outnumbered our boxes of possessions which were mainly made up of books on plants.

We found the perfect block in the neighbourhood that I grew up in, it was only slightly sloping and had water tanks. I must be the only person naïve enough to favour and choose real estate based on the existing water tanks on a property.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/38FKyRu
via IFTTT