Tag: gardening

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Crafternoon: Plants and gardens

There’s a lot of crafty fun to be had with plants and gardens. From decorating a plant pot with paint to creating a little fairy garden, from growing potatoes in pots, to designing and creating a low waste garden or smallholding (if you’ve got the space and the time)

Indoor Plants

One of the most comprehensive house plant websites that we’ve come across can be found at House Plant Expert . You can spend ages browsing through, finding just the right plant for your home, and checking out how to look after the plants you already have.

picture of spider plant

Royal Horticultural Society

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has a fascinatingly informative website about all aspects of gardening. From how to start out when you’re a complete beginner, to ideas for fun family activities, to all sorts of courses for adults.

Grow your own

It’s a lot of fun to grow your own fruit and vegetables. From sprouting cress on a damp kitchen towel, and growing a chilli plant on a sunny windowsill, to cropping blueberries and plums from your garden, there’s a whole yummy adventure just waiting for you.

One of our favourite websites for loads of useful information on growing your own in the UK is Garden Organic

Permaculture

If you want to take your gardening further – to using a design system to plan and create your own productive, waste minimising homestead – then permaculture could be the system for you. Permaculture can give a whole new set of tools for how you interact with nature. There are some fantastic resources at the website of Heather Jo Flores and at Permaculture Scotland

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The Book Block Cure – podcast 19

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Hello and welcome to the Falkirk Libraries podcast with Vikki and Gavin.
This episode we were discussing the issue of Book Block and coming clean about books we probably should love but didn’t.  All the books we mention are available to borrow and request from Falkirk Libraries

Vikki has been reading:
• Let Go My Hand  by Edward Docx
• Paper Girls Volume 4 by Brian K Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matthew Wilson

Gavin has been reading:
• The Magos by Dan Abnett
• The Russia Shift (The Fuse) by Anthony Johnston

New and forthcoming adult books:
• The Skaar Invasion (Fall of Shannara) by Terry Brookes
• Take Me In by Sabine Durrant
• Liar Liar by Lisa Jackson
• Tom Clancy’s Line of Sight by Mike Maden
• Love Will Tear Us Apart by Holly Seddon

New and forthcoming children’s titles:
• The Cook and the King by Julia Donaldson, Illustrator David Roberts (0-5)
• Zoe’s Rescue Zoo: The Super Sloth by Amelia Cobb, illustrator Sophy Williams (5-7)
• Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson (Reissue of the 70’s series (7-9)
• Agent Without Licence by Andy Lane (9-11)
• Plague Land by Alec Scarrow (Remade trilogy book 1) (Teen)

DVD recommendations:
• The Greatest Showman (PG)
• Molly’s Game (15)
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (15)

Our Reading Agony this week: ‘I’ve just moved into a house with a garden for the first time and need some advice and inspiration’.
The library has everything covered, apart from actually stocking compost and plants (though you could order them online using our free internet service).  We can help with books on designing your garden both big and small plots; deciding what you are going to plant, flowers, vegetables or both; recognising what plants are already in your garden; dealing with pests and diseases; building sheds, summer houses, decking and paving.

Staff quote of the day: “Crisp anyone?” From a colleague who has been asked by her brother to post several boxes of crisps to Australia…as apparently the Australians don’t have good snacks! They are obviously a very healthy nation!

We discussed the survey carried out recently by the Reading Agency looking at Book Block.  We confessed the books we’ve struggled to read, or never finished at all.  However there were some titles that we’ve read and enjoyed that were challenging to read but worth it. A selection of the books mentioned in our discussion included:
• Lanark by Alasdair Gray
• Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
• Harry Potter series by J K Rowling

Did you know? We stock lots of gaming guides for both adults and children.
Please check out our online catalogue for more information.

Thank you for listening to the Library Love podcast, we hope you’ve enjoyed yourself and if you did, then tell a friend or colleague about our podcast; or give us a review on iTunes so more people get to hear about us. We love to hear from you and if you’d like to get in touch with us, then go to then go to librarylovefalkirk.com, Falkirk Libraries on Facebook, or @LibFalkirk on Twitter.