Reference

Look it up, free

Short, honest pages on the plants, herbs, fruit and chemicals you actually handle at home. Every page is free. When you want the full treatment, the linked deep dive goes much further.

Herbs

herb

Basil

A tender annual that gives more the more you cut it — and bolts the moment you stop.

herb

Mint

Vigorous, useful, and genuinely invasive if you put it in a bed.

herb

Rosemary

A Mediterranean shrub that dies from kindness far more often than from neglect.

Plants

plant

Comfrey

A gardener's plant more than a kitchen one: unmatched as a fertiliser, no longer used internally.

Fruit & vegetables

fruit

Apple

The most storable fruit in a temperate garden — if you pick it at the right moment.

fruit

Tomato

Botanically a fruit, culinarily a vegetable, and ruined by refrigeration.

Household chemicals

chemical

Household bleach

A powerful oxidiser that disinfects well and reacts badly with almost everything else in the cupboard.

chemical

White vinegar

Dilute acetic acid. Excellent on limescale, useless as a disinfectant, and harmful to stone.