Category Archives: seeds

Seed swap 2017

26 Thursday Jan 2017

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homesavedseed

I do like a good seed swap.

It’s a simple idea: you take your spares along to your local village hall, or wherever the swap is taking place, and offload them to someone who can make better use of them than you can.

Then you browse around what everyone else has brought and take your pick. Everyone’s a winner.

Seed swaps started in Brighton, where the biggest, Seedy Sunday, still takes place: this year’s is on 5th February so if you’re in the area, do pop in.

But the idea has caught on, and now seed swaps are held all over the country. You’ll have to Google your local venue – there used to be a listings page on the Seedy Sunday website but it doesn’t seem to be active these days – but they’re not difficult to find.

Or, of course, you can just stay right here. Because I have been clearing out my seed boxes in a fit of efficiency and have set aside an exceptionally large pile of seeds which I know I’m not going to get around to sowing this year.

Last time I did this we had a few Royal Mail related issues with the SAE system, so I’ve changed the way things work a little. Most importantly, I’ve decided that instead of asking everyone to pay postage, I will instead ask you to donate the money to the Greenfingers charity, which in case you haven’t heard of it plants gardens for children and their families spending time in hospices all around the country.

So as long as I get the email with your address you should get your seeds in the post asap with no hitches!

Please follow the instructions carefully:

  1. Choose your seeds from the list below: maximum 10 packets per person please.
  2. Post in the comments section so I know who wants what and can update the list so everyone else knows what is left. This is first come first served, so read earlier comments to make sure your seeds haven’t been bagged already.
  3. Visit my JustGiving page and make a donation of at least £1.
  4. Email me your address with your full name (so I can match you with your JustGiving donation) and what you’ve ordered to sally(dot)nex(at)btinternet(dot)com so I can send you your seeds!

Here’s the list:

(seeds are no more than 2 years old; *=opened packet, but still with a good quantity of seeds in it; **=home-saved seeds so can’t guarantee germination, though all seeds have been kept in cool dry conditions)

Artichoke ‘Purple and Green’ x 2 packs
*Artichoke ‘Purple de Provence’
Aubergine ‘Black Beauty’ x 2 packs
Begonia ‘Bada Bing Pretty Mix’
Beetroot ‘Boldor’ (yellow)
**Borlotti bean ‘Firetongue’
Broccoli raab ’60 Days’
Cabbages – mixed pack of three, Sir, Attraction and Minicole
Cabbage ‘Golden Acre’
Cabbage ‘Gunma’
Calabrese ‘Ironman’
Calabrese ‘Sibsey’
Campanula carpatica ‘Blue’
Cauliflower ‘All the Year Round’
Celery ‘Giant Red’
*Chickpea ‘Principe’
Courgette ‘Black Forest’
*Cucamelon
Cucumber ‘White Wonder
Gherkin ‘Diamant’
Green manure Caliente Mustard
*Hibiscus ‘Simply Love’
*Ipomoea pennata
Kale Duo Mix – ‘Emerald Ice’ & ‘Midnight Sun’
Leaf salad ‘Spicy Oriental Mix’
Leek ‘Bulgaarse Reuzen – Lincoln’
Leek ‘Elefant’
*Leek – mixed varieties, on a seed tape
Mint (small packet)
Mustard (white) ‘Tilney’
Onion ‘Ailsa Craig’
Pea ‘Magnum Bonum’
Pea ‘Maro’ (marrowfat, for mushy peas)
Pepper (sweet) ‘Boneta’
Pepper (sweet) ‘Mini Bell Mixed’
Pepper (sweet) ‘Mixed’
Radish ‘Mooli Mino Early’
Runner bean ‘Prizewinner’
Sorrel ‘Red Veined’
Spinach ‘Samish’
*Spring onion ‘White Lisbon Winter Hardy’
Sweetcorn ‘Amaize’
Tagetes (French marigold) ‘Alumia Vanilla Cream’
Tomato ‘Apero’
Tomato ‘Montello’ (bush)
Tomato ‘Red Cherry’ x 2 packs
Tomato ‘Red Pear’
Tomato ‘Super Sweet 100’
Tomato ‘Sweet Aperitif’ x 2 packs
Tomato ‘Tigerella’
Viola ‘Bunny Ears’
Viola tricolor ‘Bowles Black’
Watercress ‘Aqua’

I will update this page daily as this gets under way, and the swap will run for as long as it takes for all the seeds to go, or for everyone to get a bit bored – whichever comes the sooner! Enjoy 😀

Let sowing commence…

26 Friday Feb 2016

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Seedlings coming along nicely! Here’s the tray of mixed salad seedlings I put in at the beginning of February. Alongside them are beetroot, turnips, kohl rabi and early peas (Meteor).

Generally speaking it’s a bit early to be sowing just yet – even in a greenhouse (there’s been the occasional frost on the ground in the mornings this week: I’d almost forgotten what it looked like).

But this year I’ve been trying a new regime and it’s worked a treat.

I set the propagator – my beloved Vitopod – to 12 degrees, optimum for germinating hardy seeds. Then the moment they emerged, I shifted them out of the propagator onto the shelving in the open greenhouse. This is kept a tad above freezing, so regularly (especially lately) falls to about 2-3 degrees.

That means the seedlings grow ‘hard’ – developing protection against the harsher, colder conditions so they become sturdier, shorter and stronger. They’re perhaps a tiny tad more spindly than seedlings started later in spring, but nothing like they have been in previous years when I’ve probably cossetted them a bit too much.

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Back in the propagator and the heat has been turned up to 18 degrees: it’s now the turn of tomatoes, half-hardy annuals and a whole slew of exotica including mashua, yacon and oca. Plus Chinese gooseberries and gherkins. I do love this time of year!

Big Seed Giveaway 2015

06 Sunday Dec 2015

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seeds

While we’re on the subject of seeds…

The imminent arrival of my little package of heritage seeds from the HSL has prompted me to have my annual clear-out.

I do this every year: the routine goes 1) throw out any seed packets more than two years old 2) throw out carrot and parsnip seed regardless (I buy these in fresh each year – better germination rates) 3) put aside seeds to give or swap with other gardeners.

And then of course 4) go get loads more seed!

Since I’ve now reached stage 3, and it’s coming up to Christmas which seems a nice time to start giving people stuff, I thought it was about time I revived the annual CG Big Seed Giveaway (last held in 2013 when I was still sane and my schedule hadn’t been hijacked by 48,000 words and a book publisher).

So first come, first served: get your free seeds here!

Here’s what’s available this year:

Aubergine ‘Black Beauty’
Beetroot ‘Boldor’ (yellow-fleshed)
Broccoli raab ’60 Days’
Buddleja ‘Butterfly Hybrids’
Cabbage ‘Greyhound’
Cauliflower ‘All the Year Round’
Cauliflower ‘Romanescu natalino’
Chilli pepper ‘Bhut Jolokia’
Chilli pepper ‘Ember Explosive’
Chilli pepper ‘Hotscotch’
Chilli pepper ‘Rocoto’
Cornflower ‘Black Ball’
Cucumber ‘White Wonder’
Dill
Eryngium planum ‘Blue Hobbit’
Fennel ‘Di Firenze’
New Zealand spinach
Poppy ‘Ladybird’
Radish ‘Mooli Mino Early’
Sorrel ‘Red Veined’
Strawberry ‘Baron Solemacher’
Tomato ‘Artisan TM – Bumble Bee Mixed’
Tomato ‘Baby Pink Plum’
Tomato ‘Indigo Rose’
Tomato ‘Rosella’
White mustard ‘Tilney’
Zinnia ‘Hot Mix’

How to claim your free seeds:

  • comment below giving the names of the seeds you want
  • then send an email to sally dot nex at btinternet dot com confirming your request and giving me an address to send your seeds to. I will reply giving you an address to which you’ll need to send a stamped, self-addressed envelope
  • I’ll update this post regularly giving details of what’s gone and what’s left
  • the giveaway will last for two weeks, until Monday 21 December: follow me on Twitter (@sallynex) for updates. Any seed not taken at the end of the two weeks will be… well, not sure yet, but I’ll find a use for them!
  • if you enjoy growing your seeds, please blog about them later in the year if you can!

Rules:

  • no more than 5 packets of seed per person.
  • first to place their order in the comments below gets the seed (no orders via Twitter accepted – you can only order in the comments below so everyone can see your seed has been taken)
  • if I don’t receive your SAE within a week your seeds will be re-offered
  • sorry but the offer is only open to UK respondents

Heritage days

03 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in exotic edibles, kitchen garden, seeds, unusual plants

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heritagepotatoes

Variety is the spice of life: potatoes at the 2015 Chelsea Flower Show

Now here’s an exciting early Christmas present. Just chosen my six varieties from the Heritage Seed Library’s catalogue, which plopped into my email inbox on the first day of this month – about the most eagerly anticipated bit of virtual mail I’ve had for a long time.

The HSL is a fine institution, dedicated to preserving some of our oldest (and more recently most unusual) vegetables.

Heritage veg are increasingly finding their way into catalogues, and all sorts of things are making something of a comeback, from red-flowered broad beans to Telephone peas, baby ‘finger’ carrots and Lazy Housewife beans.

But the HSL deals with the extreme end of heritage: those varieties which have been passed on from father to son and mother to daughter, kept in packets in the back of sheds, collected again at the end of the season and resown the next.

pea_magnumbonum

Pea ‘Magnum Bonum’

True heirlooms, in other words, often passed on only to neighbours in a scruffy brown envelope without a second thought, the owner barely aware of what a little nugget of unique history they have in their guardianship. Many of these hand-me-down varieties are balanced precariously on the knife-edge of existence, the only ones left of their kind.

It’s these rarities which the HSL preserves in the interest of maintaining the diversity – genetic and general – of the vegetables we grow. Without them we’d all be condemned to circling around an ever-dwindling handful of veg approved by the supermarkets for uniformity, ease of mechanical picking and reliability. And where’s the fun in that?

The HSL is not allowed to sell its seed: they don’t conform to EU rules because their inherent variability means they can’t pass the tests on distinctiveness, uniformity and stability. That means they can’t be listed on the National List of approved vegetable cultivars: so they can’t be sold.

The get-around for this has been simply to make HSL a charity, and give away six packets of seed to each member in return for the membership fee. Heritage varieties preserved; interesting varieties spread around more gardens; members happy. Simples!

So here are the six varieties I’m going to be growing next year. None of them I’ve ever grown before: all are hug-yourself exciting for different reasons. Can’t wait!

Asparagus kale: I’ve grown this one before, actually, but it never quite made it to the asparagus stage so I’m having another go. The plant grows just like kale, then in spring – just in time for the hungry gap – sends up delicious flower spikes which you eat just like broccoli. So it’s a dual-purpose veg really: my favourite kind.

Lablab bean ‘Vasu’s 30 Day Dwarf Papri’: Last time I grew lablab it was gorgeous but never made it to podding stage (flowers were lovely though). My conclusion was it needs more heat and light then we can give it here in the UK: but this one is said to get to flowering stage in 30 days, so I’m giving it another try.

Lettuce ‘Soulie’: I’m always up for a new variety of lettuce, and this has many things going for it. It’s French: tick. A cos variety; tick. Slow to bolt: tick. And it even has a red tinge to the leaves so the slugs should leave it alone. Sounds great.

Pea ‘Magnum Bonum’: I first saw this tall pea in a polytunnel at Knightshayes in Devon and have wanted to grow it ever since. It’s got the huge yields of all tall peas and the pods are said to stay well on the plant too.

Shark Fin Melon ‘Joe Dalgleish’: oooh shark fin melons… no idea what they taste like, no idea what to do with them, but anything that produces a triffid-like plant of stems 2m plus and massive watermelon-sized fruits has to be worth a go.

Squash ‘Sucrette’: good job I’ve got quite a big garden as this one’s a monster too. Huge yellow squashes with warty skins, weighing in at about 1kg each. And it’s French, so should have a good flavour too.

 

 

 

 

Bean there, done that

13 Friday Nov 2015

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borlotti_freshbeans

I do love it when you figure something out all by yourself.

I’ve always been slightly mystified by the instructions for drying shelling beans. You are supposed to dry them on the plant if at all possible: but of course this being Britain that’s a bit of a pipe dream as it always, always rains from August to about, well, June. And the September to October bit is just when your shelling beans – in this case, the sumptuously beautiful borlotti bean ‘Lingua di Fuoco’, or Firetongue – are mature and ready to dry.

So failing unending sunshine – and we really do fail quite well here – you’re supposed to take the entire plant and hang it indoors, upside-down so the beans can carry on drying.

Eh?

Anyone who has grown climbing beans knows they are monster plants, wound and twisted around their supports in a Gordian knot only the bravest would try to untangle in order to pull up said plant. It stumped me totally.borlotti_hangingupWell: I had a bit of a brainwave this year. It suddenly occurred to me that you didn’t need to take the plants off the supports: keep ’em on. And since at around 8ft high they were never really going to go literally upside down (the highest ceiling in our cottage is only about 7ft – we are not allowed to have tall friends, and bean plants are out of the question) – how about horizontal?

So I hung them off their handily sturdy cane, horizontally from the roof of the greenhouse. Took about five minutes: job done.

Trouble is I now have a further problem: I live in one of the damper corners of the world and it has been extremely damp in the last few weeks. So even the greenhouse hasn’t been the driest of places.

To harvest good quality shelling beans the pod should be crisp brown and rattle when you shake it. Unfortunately a couple of weeks later when I returned to my borlottis, too many of the pods had turned grey and mouldy instead. I wonder if I’d kept a closer eye on them and picked them as they dried whether I could have avoided this.borlotti_beans

The beans inside were quite badly affected, too. I got enough unblemished beans which should keep well enough to sow again next year. But it wasn’t quite the generous winter’s supply I’d hoped for.

Ah well: onward and upward. The search is now on for a properly dry place, large enough to take a hefty cane with attached beanstalks plus pods. Any ideas?

Things ain’t what they ought to be

03 Tuesday Nov 2015

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pattypansquashThese are this year’s patty pan squash

They’re a little bit odd. I’ve grown yellow patty pans before: and they were like miniature flying saucers, about 8-10″ across and beautifully scalloped at the edges.

These are not.

They reach this size – about 4″ across – make a half-hearted attempt at the scallop thing and then go rotten.

I shouldn’t complain really: they’re very prolific as you can see, so make up for lack of size with quantity. They’re nice and firm (before they go soft) and tasty: I cut them up skins and all and use them just like courgettes.

But yellow patty pans they aren’t. I now think I got a duff batch of seed.

pattypansquash2

This happens more often than you’d think. One year I bought three plug plants which were meant to be melons: two of them were, the third turned out to be a pumpkin. You can’t actually tell the difference just by looking at the seedlings: it was when the flowers appeared that the truth was out, but by then it was a massive behemoth bidding for a greenhouse takeover.

I planted three hydrangeas this spring in a client’s garden which were meant to be ‘Mariesii Perfecta’ – a seductive smokey-grey-blue lacecap so beautiful you can’t quite believe it’s real.

What has flowered is a horrid candy-pink half-mophead, half-lacecap which looks like a reject from a failed hydrangea breeding experiment. It’s dreadful and rather embarrassing since I had talked the owner into getting ‘Mariesii Perfecta’ instead of the ‘Annabelle’ she had originally suggested.

The list goes on: limp ‘Lollo Rossa’ lettuces in a washed-out half-green instead of the crisply ruffled burgundy purple they’re meant to be; winter super-hardy supposedly January King cabbages which are not properly savoyed and worse, mature and over by September; ‘Electric’ onions more pink than red.

I don’t know whether seed companies are getting complacent: perhaps they’re assuming we don’t know enough about our varieties (or care, perhaps) to be able to tell the difference.

Or maybe it’s us: I haven’t yet complained about the hydrangeas, though I know I should have my money back or perhaps three Annabelles to replace them. And if I did complain at least the plant producers would know I actually noticed and cared.

Something is undeniably a little amiss with the supply chain here, and it worries me: if you don’t get the right thing in your seed packet (or plug plant tray) and you don’t know, then you’ll always have a skewed idea of what home-grown vegetables (or plants in general) should be like. It matters for future breeding, as muddied gene pools are not good for predictable results. And it matters just because when I buy a certain type of lettuce I have chosen it for the properties it’s supposed to have – not some diluted hybrid mishmash.

Of seed bombs and mushrooms

23 Saturday Feb 2013

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I got a lovely little parcel in the post the other day.

seedswap

I do love a good seed swap. This is the second year I’ve been taking part in this one: it’s run by the lovely Carl Legge, who lives in an obscure bit of Wales I’d only happened to have heard of because a breed of sheep is named after it (obscure bits of Wales are always heartbreakingly beautiful so that’s a good thing).

The idea of Seedy Penpals is pretty straightforward: you put your name down, you’re paired with another equally seed-obsessed gardener, and then given a (different) swapee – someone to send your own spare seeds to.

And this is the result. I don’t know what it is with beautiful packaging this year but everyone’s into it. I got the most beautiful packet of sweetpea seeds earlier this year from the wonderful Ursula over at Easton Walled Gardens. Well, I say packet: it was actually a very stylish flat tin, of the matt silver cigar sort, and inside the packets of sweetpeas were laid lovingly in a beautifully-folded piece of brown paper. It all looked so perfect I could hardly bear to break the seal and sow the seeds (though I got over that and they’re now in the altogether more prosaic surroundings of a load of old loo rolls full of compost in the greenhouse, soon, I hope, to germinate).

And my wonderful Seedy Penpal, Cally of Countrygate Gardens in Wiltshire (and a lady after my own heart: she has done a lot of what I one day dream of doing) clearly has an eye for a good ribbon, too. She’s taken such trouble to bind up my seeds so beautifully: it gives a pile of seed packets the delicious anticipation of a birthday present.

seedswap2

I particularly loved the bee mix seedballs – you can buy them from Cally (hunt down her phone number on the above website). Full of foxgoves, viper’s bugloss, wild marjoram, red clover and birdsfoot trefoil they might have been designed for my chalky soil. And they came wrapped in an artless square of hessian tied in string: it’s the little touches that make all the difference, you see.

seedswap3

Inside were – quite literally – seedballs. I’m very intrigued to find out if these work: the seeds inside are apparently mixed with clay, compost and chilli powder (to deter pests) and made into a little pellet about the size of an aniseed ball. I think you’re meant to sow the whole thing. It says to scatter them on the ground, but each pellet contains thousands of seeds… well. It’s not gardening as I know it: but I’m willing to give it a try. I shall report back.

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And what were the other goodies in my little bundle of fun? Well: ‘Cosmic Purple’ carrot, which I’ve wanted to grow for ages (it’s one of the original heirloom purple carrots, though I think the ‘Cosmic’ bit probably came later); white and blue love-in-a-mist; some scallop summer squash (yay!), cleome, calendula, molucella and gypsophila; orange-scented thyme to add to my collection; some melons; and – get this – mushrooms! And it says all you need is horse manure. I’ve got loads, and loads, and loads of that thanks to my two little ponies, so I’m away. It sounds like a bit of a faff to get it started, but if home-grown chestnut mushrooms are the result, I’m game.

Thank you, Cally: you’ve sown the seeds (pun intended) for a wonderful season to come. And thanks also to Carl, for putting in the considerable work involved in setting up the swap in the first place. See you next year!

The Big Seed Giveaway 2013

25 Friday Jan 2013

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seedgiveaway

One side-effect of last week’s ever-so-virtuous clearing out of seed packets is that I now have a socking big pile of seeds I know I don’t have room for yet I know I will sow regardless unless I give them away to someone else.

Cue this year’s CG Big Seed Giveaway!

Please save me (and my garden) from myself by taking some seeds off my hands. They’re all in date (by which I mean packeted or collected in 2011 or later), quite a lot of them are very covetable and I will blame you for the piles of unwanted seedlings on my compost heap and the subsequent hand-wringing and lamentation that will follow if you don’t make me send them to you instead.

So here you go: choose what you want out of this lot (rules follow a bit further down the page):

Wildflower mixes:

  • Honey Bee Flower Mix
  • UK Native Wildflower Mix (2 packs)
  • Miriam Rothschild’s Wildflower Meadow Mix

Flowers:

  • Bupleurum rotundifolium
  • Nasturtium ‘Mambo’
  • Nasturtium ‘Orange Troika’
  • Sweet pea ‘Ballerina Blue’
  • Hollyhock ‘Halo Mixed’
  • Sunflower (unnamed variety)
  • Helianthus maximiliani (perennial sunflower)
  • Coreopsis ‘Incredible Dwarf Mixed’
  • Poppy ‘St George’
  • Poppy ‘Pink Fizz’
  • Pansy ‘Morning Dew’
  • Gaillardia ‘Arizona Apricot’
  • Antirrhinum ‘ReminiScent’ F1
  • Pansy ‘Cool Summer Breeze’
  • Californian poppy ‘Peach Sorbet’
  • Cornflower ‘Classic Fantastic’
  • Petunia ‘Sparklers’
  • Hesperis matronalis (sweet rocket)

Veg:

  • Tomato ‘Rainbow Blend’
  • Tomato ‘Moneymaker’ (2 1 pack)
  • Tomato ‘Santeramo’ F1
  • Tomato ‘Gardeners’ Delight’
  • Tomato ‘Sweet Aperitif’
  • Chilli ‘Chenzo’
  • Chilli ‘Hot Cayenne’ (2 1 pack)
  • Pepper ‘Sweet Californian Wonder’
  • Squash ‘Sweet Dumpling’
  • Squash ‘Potimarron’ (2 1 pack)
  • Courgette ‘Sunstripe’ F1
  • Martock beans (5 4 3 2 1 pack)
  • French climbing bean ‘George’s’
  • Salad leaves ‘Rocky Top Lettuce’
  • Lettuce ‘Great Lakes’
  • Bulb fennel ‘Di Firenze’
  • Lettuce ‘Ashbrook’
  • Cabbage (mini savoy) ‘Caserta’ F1
  • Brokali ‘Apollo’ F1
  • Cabbage (mini) ‘Mon Petit’ F1

…and a bit of both:

Double pack of Sweet Pea ‘Royal Family Mix’ and Tomato ‘Maskotka’

How to claim your free seeds:

  • comment below giving the names of the seeds you want
  • then send an email to sally dot nex at btinternet dot com confirming your request and giving me an address to send your seeds to
  • I’ll update this post regularly giving details of what’s gone and what’s left
  • the giveaway will last for a week, until 1 February: follow me on Twitter (@sallynex) for updates
  • if you enjoy growing your seeds, please blog about them later in the year if you can!

Rules:

  • no more than 10 packets of seed and no more than one packet of the same variety per person.
  • first to place their order in the comments below gets the seed
  • sorry but the offer is only open to UK respondents

Happy bidding!

Snowy day activities

18 Friday Jan 2013

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winter_seeds

Fennel seedheads in snow

It’s snowing.

There are few types of weather which really make gardening impossible. Even when we woke up to a hard frost the other day I was out turning my compost. But this – when it’s six inches and more falling all the time – this is indoor gardening weather.

So today’s housebound horticulture was my annual seed packet clearout.

This is a slightly tedious but nonetheless very necessary part of the beginning of my seed-sowing year. I collect dozens of seed packets over the average gardening season: some given to me by nice PR people, some I buy either for gardening projects I’m working on, or just for fun; others I acquire at seed swaps or in impulse buys at garden shows.

Most of them are opened, which is reassuring. But I tend to sow them and then stuff them back into my seed boxes in a hurry, so that by the end of the year they’re bulging with last year’s seeds, this year’s seeds and who knows what in between.

seeds_packets

The pile of jettisoned out of date packets grows…

So here’s my seed-sowing survival strategy, followed every year to make sure I’m not drowning in unwanted seedlings by June:

  • jettison the old stuff: I really can’t be bothered to sow seeds when only half will germinate anyway, and that’s what happens when you sow old seed. So I chuck out any packets over two years old, plus anything that says ‘carrot’ or ‘parsnip’ on it as these are no good after just one year.
  • weed out the doubles: in 2012 I somehow ended up with three packets of ‘Gardeners’ Delight’ tomatoes. I didn’t even grow any ‘Gardeners’ Delight’ tomatoes. These go on my ‘seed swaps’ pile – unopened seeds I can give away in exchange for something more interesting instead.
  • do a reality check: I team up my now beautifully slimmed-down seed boxes with my veg-planting plan for this year, and make sure I’m only sowing what I have room for. I have thrown too many surplus seedlings on the compost heap to ever want to do it again and have learned a steely discipline on this one.
  • make some hard choices: I want some courgettes to go in the patch by the gate: I have four different courgette varieties in my seed box (round ‘Tondo di Piacenza’, yellow striped ‘Sunstripe’, green striped ‘Safari’ and climbing ‘Black Forest’, since you ask). At least two of them have to go. Apart from not liking yellow courgettes (that was easy) – I have no idea which to choose. Anyone want to make the decision for me?

And finally…

  • make a shopping list: this starts ‘parsnips and carrots’ and goes on to fill in the gaps. All my calabrese was out of date this year, and I could do with some white Swiss chard. And then I get more seeds to stuff my seed boxes with and…

I think I may take up stamp collecting instead.

Of sumptuous sweetpeas…

12 Sunday Aug 2012

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Last week I trundled around the North Circular at slightly less than walking pace (being a country bumpkin these days I’d forgotten to think this through: Olympic Lanes plus standard rush hour traffic equals journey demanding nightmarish levels of endurance) on my way to East Anglia. It took me four hours to get about 20 miles.
But anyway: I put all that behind me as soon as I walked onto the modest but treasure-filled trials grounds at Mr Fothergill’s (also home to Johnsons Seeds and DT Browns, so you get three for the price of one, so to speak).
I was there on my annual pilgrimage to East Anglia (where for reasons buried in the mists of horticultural lore most of the seed companies seem to be based) to get a sneak peek at this year’s new varieties.
There are dozens of them, too: the results of years of labouring behind the scenes to select flowers and veg which are just that little bit different. This year there were mini cabbages (container gardening is a rich seam for breeders), a handsome stripey courgette that hadn’t even got a name yet, and several of the new long, pointed sweet peppers which look more like big chillies.
Courgette ‘TZ 9308’
And there were sweet peas. Row upon row of them, brilliant with colour and a breathtaking sight. Mr Fothergills has declared 2013 the Year of the Sweet Pea and it’s introducing 25 sweet pea varieties to its range including six new ones.
They are quite sumptuous to look at, too, with lots of the deep clarets and burgundies I find so ravishing. My only quibble is that the breeders seem to have left most of the scent behind them on the lab bench: most of these are somewhat fragrant, but it’s a pale shadow of the rich scent of a ‘Cupani’ or ‘Matucana’. Perhaps they’d be best grown with a few of the old favourites threaded among them, just so you don’t forget what a sweet pea ought to smell like.
I adore sweet peas: this year mine have been something of a disappointment (pesky slugs – again) but luckily the school garden I’m currently looking after has two big wigwams of them which nobody’s picking at the moment, it being summer holidays, except me.
It won’t be long before I’m planting next year’s seeds, in loo roll inners, to overwinter in the coldframe. This has been pretty much a foolproof method for me for years now: the overwintered seedlings don’t like being moved around and are a little sulky at first but get going eventually, and I back them up with a second sowing (direct) in about March or April to flower well into summer.
So if you’re poised with your box full of compost-packed loo rolls just itching to get the seeds in – here are a few new pretties to whet your appetite.

‘Beaujolais’
One of the best colours of them all, I thought, though I do have a little thing about this particular shade of flower. Lovely big plant with sturdy straight stems: very little scent though
‘Chelsea Centenary’
Guess what the big fuss is going to be all about next year? You couldn’t really have a Year of the Sweet Pea coinciding with the 100th birthday of the world’s most famous flower show without naming one of your new varieties for it. It’s a multiflora, producing lots of blooms on the same stem, and pretty in a lavender sort of way.
‘Eclipse’
An old-ish variety bred in 1974 and the perfect cutting flower, with long, straight stems and a good clear colour. It was a little more perfumed, too.
‘Fire and Ice’
I liked the two-tone effect you get with this one: mauve, pink, cream and the occasional flower with say a dark purple edging to the petal.
‘Juliet’
I found this charming: flowers the colour of clotted cream just splashed with the most subtle of pink tinges. And hallelujah: it smelled wonderful. Very spicy, perhaps too rich for those who like their sweet peas sweet, but I loved it.
‘Wiltshire Ripple’
My prize for the most intriguing colouring, with flowers the colour of bruised plums. No scent, though.
‘Air Warden’
This one shouted to be noticed with those bright cerise pink flowers: a plant to leap out from the border and demand attention. A little perfume to this one, too.
‘Almost Black’
Mmm…. just look at that colouring. Sex on a stem: sultry, sumptuous, gorgeous. I do love a black flower.
‘Pandemonium’
Last but not least, another of the new varieties: large flowers with those raspberry-ripple blooms gambolling around the ramrod-straight stems.