What We’re Growing in 2018

We LOVE this time of year as we see all the bulbs pushing through in the garden and the weather (hopefully) starts to improve. We have BIG plans to grow lots of lovely things in our garden this year to supplement the fruit trees, rhubarb, raspberries and blueberries we already have growing. Here’s what we’re growing in 2018 in our veg garden:

VEGETABLES

• Rocket ‘Speedy’  -Rocket has become hugely popular in the last few years, and we have to say its warm, peppery flavour works well with so many other salad ingredients. As its name suggests, this is a fast grower and one of the very best strains available.
• Shallot ‘Vigarmor’  – This modern French variety is well worth growing. Firm, pink flesh and a coppery tinge to the skin make these banana shaped bulbs very attractive as well as being crammed with flavour. High yields and a good storer too.
• Garlic ‘Solent Wight’ – This superb, softneck strain yields large, high quality bulbs with a fragrance which is both long and strong.
• Onion ‘Hercules’ – Gives high yields of almost spherical bulbs with rich, golden skins and firm, well flavoured flesh.  Hercules shows very good resistance to bolting and will keep for several months.
• Onion ‘Red Baron’ – Onion Red Baron AGM is the best red-skinned variety, the attractive, crimson-skinned bulbs when sliced reveal contrasting red and white rings, making it most attractive on the plate. Red Baron has a lovely, robust flavour and is a remarkably good keeper.
• Leeks ‘Porbella’ – Remarkable for its heavy yields of very upright shanks, which can be lifted from October right through to February, Porbella stands in good condition for months and shows good resistance to rust.
• Lettuce ‘Salad Bowl Mixed’  – These widely grown varieties are two of the very best loose-leaf lettuces. Simply cut and come again.
• Carrot ‘Nandor’ – This high quality Nantes hybrid has superb resistance to carrot fly.  Quick maturing and can withstand variable weather conditions which make this an ideal variety for the UK climate.
• Chard ‘Perpetual Spinach’ – Worthwhile spinach-alternative which does not run to seed even on dry soils. High yields of large, dark, fleshy, tasty leaves produced over several months.
• Onion (Spring) ‘White Lisbon’ – Regarded by many as THE spring onion, it is a fast grower and has a great taste.
• Radish ‘Solito’ – A new red radish, crunchy and with a delicious flavour. This variety will mature in just over three weeks. Very uniform and up to 40mm in diameter. Has a fine tap root, good tolerance to cracking and high resistance to Fusarium.
• Courgette ‘Tuscany’ – Well suited to the UK climate, this vigorous variety produces few spines so it’s easier to pick.  It has resistance to powdery mildew and yields a large supply of very dark straight fruits.  Has firm flesh and excellent flavour.
• Beetroot ‘Bulls Blood’ – Grow as cut-and-come-again salad leaves with a mild beetroot flavour. The deep red foliage can be cut back to the ground three or four times and the colour intensifies as autumn approaches. The roots can also be eaten.
• Beetroot ‘Boltardy’ – Beetroot Boltardy can be sown earlier than most other varieties with little fear of bolting. The roots are deep red and of good quality and flavour, yielding well in most soils. Boltardy is a multigerm variety, so each seed which germinates successfully will produce several plants.

FRUIT

• Strawberry ‘Mara des Bois’ – Imagine the intense perfume and rich flavour of wild strawberries combined with the fruit size of modern varieties and you have strawberry Mara des Bois! The medium size fruits of this ever-bearer strawberry are a true treat and one which no strawberry fan will be able to resist. Truly scrumptious!

FLOWERS

We’re also growing a few flowers from seed too to add to our pretty garden:

• Cosmos ‘Sensation’ – Cosmos grows densely with large single pink, red and white flowers. Good for the back of the border and as a cut flower.
• Sweet Pea ‘Cupani’ – Believed to be the original sweet pea which was sent to England from Sicily in 1699 – or very closely akin to it – this eye-catching bicolour remains one of the most beautiful sweet peas you can grow. Grow a little piece of history, smell the fragrance of those blooms and you will understand why sweet peas became so popular.

As you know from our last blog, “Growing Potatoes” we will also be growing three different varieties of potatoes this year.

I’d love to hear what you plan to grow in your garden this year…

Lulu & Tilda xx

Thanks to DT Seeds who we purchased this year’s seeds from and for all their great plant descriptions. 

Sow Sow Yummy!

The sun is shining (or at least it was when I wrote this, it is probably snowing now knowing Scotland!) so it’s the perfect time to sow vegetables in the garden. Don’t know what to do? Well, lucky I am here to show you how and to tell you about some wonderful tools I used along the way…

Soon you could have a barrow full of amazing leeks just like mine!

WEED YOUR VEG PATCH

It’s important that you have a weed free veg patch and that you have good quality soil. Add some new compost or fertiliser if you need to.

Weed your veg beds before you start sowing your seeds

PREPARE YOUR BED

Once you are weed free, take a few minutes to make sure your veg beds are nice and flat and even. It’s a bit like making your bed in the morning, you have to make it nice and neat and ready for bedtime! I used my Twigz rake, perfect for this job. Maybe not so much in your real bed though!

Rake out your veg beds and make the nice and even

MAKE A DRILL

Not the tool kind silly! It’s a little line in the soil where you can sow your seeds into. Use a cane to help make sure your row is nice and straight.

Make a row to sow your seeds into

SOW YOUR SEEDS

Carefully pour some seeds into your hand and sprinkle them into your row, making sure they are evenly sown. Gently cover them over and water them in. If you are sowing seed potatoes or onion sets, gently push them into the soil to the depth stated on the instructions.

This ickle onion will grow nice & big, just like me!

KNOW YOUR ONIONS

It’s important to remember what you have planted where – you don’t want to be making chips out of your shallots – so make sure you carefully write your vegetable names on a plant marker. I like to draw a picture too – here’s my rocket!!

Zoom zoom, a rocket!

Now you just need to sit back and watch your seedlings pop up. You will need to “thin them” which means removing some of the smaller seedlings and give some bigger ones space to grow. Keep your seedlings water and weed free and before you know it you will be picking fresh veg straight from your garden.

TOOLS

Good tools are the back bone of any good gardener and I have found some wonderful ones to use in my garden. To do all of the above I used:

• Twigz tool set (to weed and mark out my drills) £19.99*
• Twigz rake (to make sure the veg beds were nice and flat) £8.99*
• Twigz watering can (to water all my lovely wee seeds in with) £10.99*
• Twigz wheelbarrow (to barrow away last year’s leeks I dug up!) £49.99*

Twigz do a wonderful range of garden tools for children

I thoroughly recommend the Twigz range of gardening tools for kids. They are great quality and can even last the rigours of a professional like me! They are a little pricier than some alternatives but the quality and durability makes it worth it. They get a big green thumbs up from me!

For more seed sowing inspiration read my other blog Sowing The Seeds of Love.

Love Lulu xx

*Price correct at time of publication

10 Super Easy Spring Veg To Grow

Saturday 19th March is the Spring Equinox and officially the first day of Spring yippee. That means sunnier days, lighter evenings and most importantly more time to play in the garden! It also means it’s time for me to get busy growing veg again so to help you along, here are my TEN easiest Spring veg to get growing…

Here we grow!

Before you start to grow any veg, take a minute to remove any weeds or large stones from your veg beds and give them a wee hoe over. If you haven’t already added a soil improver over winter now is a great time to add some nutrients to help your veg grow big and strong (just like me!). Done? OK, let’s go…

1. BEETROOT

This is one of my favourite root vegetables to grow as it is super-duper easy. Beetroot prefer a well drained soil so add some sand if yours is a bit sticky. Now, just sprinkle some seeds in a long row and gently cover. As the seedlings come through thin them out to allow big juicy beetroot to grow.

2. SALAD

Now under the heading of “Salad” I am covering lettuce leaves, rocket and spinach as they are all equally easy to grow. I especially love the “cut and come again” salad leaves as they just keep on growing the more you eat them. Wowsers!

3. RADISH

You have got your salad growing so you will need some radish growing with it. The best thing about radish is how quick it grows. Within a few days you will see it popping up. Sow successional rows so you always have radish to eat.

Prep your soil then sow your seeds in a nice neat row

4. PEAS

Another easy-peasy (ha, see what I did there?!) veg to grow and yummy to eat (it’s one of Tilda’s favourites!) If you don’t want to train big tall ones up lines then opt for a dwarf bush variety. I love popping the peas out of their pods!

5. POTATOES

An absolute staple in our garden and super easy to grow. Buy some seeds potatoes and let them chit on your window sill for a couple of weeks before burying them deep in your veg patch. Cover over the leaves as they pop through (this is called “earthing up”) and you will have a yummy batch of tatties come summer!

6. ONIONS

Another easy one, just buy onion “sets” which are teeny weeny onions and plant them in your veg area. They will soon grow into much bigger onions for you to pick.

Teeny weeny onion sets!

7. SWISS CHARD

Not only is swiss chard super healthy (it is full of vitamins and minerals) but it is also soooooo pretty. As well as growing it in your veg patch you can grow it in your flower beds where its colourful stalks will be a lovely addition to the garden.

8. TOMATOES

If you are an expert like me then you can grow a wide variety of tomatoes in your greenhouse. But here’s a secret tip, choose a “tumbler” or “bush” variety and they will be super happy growing in a pot in a sunny corner of your garden. The bonus is you don’t have to “pinch out” this type of tomato or tie them up as they grow. And they will give you the most delicious cherry tomatoes you have ever tasted! And much easier than going to the supermarket to buy them!

9. COURGETTES

This year I am growing both green and yellow courgettes. I have planted the seeds in little trays in the house and when they are a LOT bigger I will plant them outside in big pots where they will give me lovely courgettes all summer long. I’ll need to be fast though to beat the cheeky snails who love them too!

Here I am checking for courgettes

10. SPRING ONIONS

Well it wouldn’t be a Spring veg blog without a Spring Onion would it? Like beetroot, just sprinkle some seeds in a line and thin out the seedlings as they come through. Couldn’t be easier!

Happy growing readers!

Lulu xx

Sow Clever: Upcycled Seed Trays

It’s the perfect time of year to start growing veg from seed (let’s face it the weather isn’t really good enough to be outdoors all day just yet so sneaking indoors to do some seed sowing is a good thing!) But you don’t need expensive seed trays or propagators. Literally have a look around your house and you will find plenty ideas for free seed trays to use and sow clever…

Toilet roll tubes

We all have loads of these. We normally use them for craft projects but they make excellent planters for seeds. Cut them down a bit in size (you could easily make two pots from each tube) and sit them on a tray and fill with compost. Easy peasy.

Egg shells

You can even grow seeds, such as cress, in egg shells. Look at the funny haircuts above!!!

Egg cartons

And nothing need go to waste with an egg. We have used the egg shell and we can use the carton too. Perfect for growing seeds in.

Milk or juice cartons

Any sort of carton can be cut open (ask a grown up to do that bit) and filled with compost. Wonder if I can grow oranges in an orange carton?…

We grew some brilliant broccoli in this juice tray!

Paper cups

Get your mummy and daddy to save their coffee cups and recycle those party cups too. Perfect for growing veg.

Newspapers

Newspapers can be folded up to make little cups for growing seeds in. These are brilliant as they decompose in the ground so you don’t have to upset the teeny roots by taking them out of their pot.

Ice cube tray

Another great alternative to a seed tray. Just make sure you don’t pop it back in the freezer!

Bottles & Pots

Old juice bottles or yoghurt or custard pots are other great ways to sow seeds. The bonus of using a juice bottle is that you can make a lid which then keeps the heat in and makes the seeds grow faster!

So there you go, not only do you save money on the veg you are growing you don’t even need to spend any money on pots to grow them in. Veg-tastic!

To learn more about how to grow seeds in any kind of tray then read my blog here.

Happy sowing,

Lulu xx