A little later than normal but here’s the winner of our last Photo Mission – Let’s Get Sowing. It’s a beautiful photo of some seeds about to be sowed by Nina Clarke. I particularly like the muted colours in the photo and the narrow depth of field that shows the different shapes and sizes of the seed beautifully. Well done Nina.
Nina wins a mega-stylish Window Salads seed kit from the guys over at Seed Pantry, worth £14.99 each, with eight packs of seed including: Rocket, Radishes, Chillies, Lettuce (Lolla Rossa & Salad Bowl), Basil, Parsley and Spring Onions.
I’m so excited this year that we might actually (fingers crossed) get some Pears. I planted two Pear trees coming up for two and half years ago now. I trained them as oblique cordons (with means one branch on a 45 degree angle) because my garden isn’t big enough to sustain anything bigger.
They’ve been growing happily for the last two years, last year one of them even flowered! But the problem is it’s no good if one of them flowers, I need both to flower because they need the other for pollination.
One of them is Conference and the other is Doyenne du Comice (or Comice Pear to you and I). They’re the kind you see in the shops. Conference is the long green type and Comice is the short yellow type. I didn’t want to go too exotic as I’ve never grown Pears before and I wanted to ensure that I had good strong varieties that I was sure would pollinate each other.
Well, this year, both are flowering. And I’m over the moon. I know that it takes Pears usually three years to get established and to start fruiting so I wasn’t expecting anything until next year. But now both of them have tons of flowers on them. I’m just hoping those bees do their job so I can eat juicy Pears. Come on bees!
I’m just packing up the first of my books and I’m busy putting together my seed packets to put inside each box. This entails a lot of cutting, sticking, filling and pressing. It’s all a bit Blue Peter and I love it! The seeds I’m using are a Lettuce mix kindly packaged by Victoriana Nursery.
It seems like the most simple and obvious thing in the world; to put some free seeds in with a children’s book about growing vegetables. But actually it has been one of the more complicated areas of producing Jackson’s Garden. I thought you might like to know what I learned.
Firstly, you can’t just package up seed willy-nilly and sent it all over the world. This much I had already guessed but I didn’t know how tight the guidelines were. You cannot send seed outside the EU, fullstop. Inside, the EU you must be a registered seed packer with Defra in order to distribute seeds. Each packer ensures that his or her seeds comply with EEC rules on seed quality.
So…this all means that me, little ole me with my tiny plot, is not really Defra’s idea of a bona-fide seed packer. But so long as I know someone who is (enter Victoriana Nursery) then I can send the children some seed – hooray! So it all worked out in the end.
Since discovering all this I have been noticing other non-seed distributors and how they do it. Example, Cath Kidston’s new range of seeds is packed by Thompson and Morgan.
And this gorgeous little box of Culinary Quirks seed by Hen & Hammock, uses seed provided by heritage seed supplier Thomas Etty esq.
Interesting huh? How does this all work in America, or Canada or elsewhere. I’d be interested to know.
We’ve been having some unseasonably dry, sunny weather here in the UK. I’ve been out in the garden almost every day and everything has put on a growing spurt. My Tomatoes have been hardening off well in a sheltered spot, my Courgette, Pumpkin and French Bean seeds have sprouted. Heck, I’ve even got three Melon seedlings coming on in the cloche.
I’ve been watering the garden like mad to keep things growing and to take advantage of the sunny weather to get things going. It seems to have worked. But I almost had a disaster the other day. I went out and forgot to open my coldframe. When I came back my Lettuce seedlings were gasping for breath and looking very sorry for themselves. I watered them quickly and made sure to ventilate the frame every day since.
My coldframe is the in the south-facing corner and so gets the sun almost all day. When it’s closed it can get really hot in there and when seedlings are very small their root system isn’t large enough to seek out water and they get over-heated very quickly.
I won’t be making the same mistake again.
Today I planted my Seakale. Seakale is one of those vegetables that you see on TV programmes about what the Victorian’s grew in their huge walled kitchen gardens. But it’s not the kind of vegetable that people actually grow. But I’ve always wanted to grow it and now’s my chance.
I checked out where I should plant it. A sunny position is best where it can be left undisturbed. I didn’t have a spot in full sun so we’ll have to see how it does in part shade. The soil should be deep, rich, sandy, ideal pH7. It also likes good drainage. And they should be planted 15 – 17 inches apart.
Forced Seakale is really the crop that you want. And as I understand it I need to leave it a year before I can start forcing it.
The only problem I can see is that I might have to invest in a neat little Seakale forcer to add to my forcing pot gallery.
I went to Sissinghurst last week, one-time home of Vita Sackville-West, gardener, writer, Virginia Woolf’s lover – the norm. I actually went to see the vegetable garden but it was closed. I’m assuming there’s not much to see yet, like in my own garden. So I contented myself with looking at the beautifully trained roses.
They’re everywhere. Short little stubby ones, tall tower-like ones. And all trained in this beautiful fluffy clouds formation. It’s very striking.
They even have them climbing the walls in the same pattern. I have two climbing roses here at mtp. One is doing very well next to my Apple tree and the other is well, doing not so good in a pot on my deck. I’m determined to train them a la Sissinghurst. I’ve missed the boat this year since the best time to prune them is November. But I found a handy guide written by Sarah Raven on this very technique that I’ll be using in Autumn.
Meanwhile, here’s a photo of the craziest bench I’ve ever seen.
Three copies of my book arrived a couple of days ago. They are just the early copies before the main shipment arrives next week. I’ve been testing out some packaging ideas, as you can see. I wanted to create a natural look and ensure that most of the materials are compostable too. But I also wanted to give the feel of receiving a vintage style, gardening package. A bit like how I imagine ordering seeds would have been in the 50s.
As it turns out I can’t send straw, and for very good reason. So I decided to create some ‘straw-like’ material out of kraft paper. So the book will be packed in this. Then I thought it would be nice to wrap each book up like a present and tie it with garden twine, old-school parcel style. This is an example of the books that will be sent out with seeds (European countries)…
…and here’s an example of those that will be sent out with stickers (outside Europe). All of this means that I’ll be busy wrapping and tying packages. But I think it’s worth it to get that ‘garden’ feel.
The books won’t ship until after April 20th but you can pre-order them now from my Jackson’s Garden Etsy page and I’ll get them out as soon as I can. If anyone has any great packaging ideas or sources then I’d love to know about it. Maybe, I could do something completely different for book two.
There’s nothing like a sunny day to give you a kick start in the garden. Today, was glorious and I managed to get all the jobs on my list done and checked off. The first ones to benefit were my Tomato seedlings who spent the whole day outside soaking up the rays.
The Cauliflowers that I’ve been hardening off for the last week also went in the ground.
And I took the plunge and transfered my Winter Lettuce from the coldframe to the soil. Although, I did cover them with some fleece just incase it gets chilly tonight.
Jackson followed me around the garden all day with a dustpan and brush, shouting, ‘mess!’ and attempting to sweep up after me – awww! I’ve taught him well :)
I also planted my Potatoes and sowed some Courgettes, Pumpkins, more Lettuce, Parsley, Beetroot and Sunflowers. Phew! time for a cup of tea and a sit down, I think.
My Purple Sprouting Broccoli is finally nearing harvest. Honestly, you need the patience of a very patient saint to grow this thing. This year seems a particularly painful year. It’s already April and it’s only just purpling up. In previous years we’ve been eating it by early March.
But, that said, I’m very excited about the prospect of eating Purple Sprouting Broccoli. If you’ve never tasted it, then do it, and very soon. It’s the most Broccoliy tasting thing you’ll ever taste. It’s one of those vegetables that is worth growing, even though it’s probably the most expensive Broccoli you’ll ever have on your plate (cost/hour of your time that is). But still, I will grow it every year and I can’t wait to get it in the pan.
The Winter-hardy Cauliflowers (Avalanche) that I sowed back in October in the coldframe have grown very well. And part one of the Cauliflower plan has been completed. I’m desperate for some room in the coldframe right now though so I potted some up a few weeks ago with a view to hardening them off to plant outside soon.
They’re doing well underneath this fleecy wigwam that I constructed with the help of some Figo connectors. I had the fleece off all day today since it was sunny and sort of warm. But I did see a sneaky Cabbage White butterfly flitting around which means I’ll have to check the underside of their leaves for eggs before I tuck them up tonight.
I left some in the coldframe for now in an attempt to stagger the crop. I have never managed to grow an edible Cauliflower, but I’ll keep trying. Year after year, oh yes. Any tips, apart from liming the soil, planting them firmly and protecting from butterflies?
