Growing Plants

I use herbs a lot, both for cooking and for medicinal purposes. I even use them as part of the vegetable growing process.....

The weather has been much warmer in the last two weeks and suddenly it’s all systems go in my vegetable garden. I'm happy to report that.....

The rust did spread to my leeks though, but I sprayed them with gin and that kept.....

I did sow some very early peas and broad beans today. I covered the soil with some agricultural fleece to help warm it up a week ago.....

At SimplySeed we have been been busy sowing and this week has seen the start of some of the early summer seeds, such as verbena, ageratum, salvia, and nemesia.....

One of the first treasures of the year is rhubarb. Forcing rhubarb makes it ready earlier, the stems are sweeter and usually don’t need peeling.....

Here at SimplySeed we have been sowing a few of the slower growing varieties to get us started....

In previous years I've only grown curly kale, but this July I planted a few cavolo nero seeds too for a change.

In an interesting twist, the dark flatter leaves of the cavolo nero don't seem as attractive to the white fly.....

I grew parsnips for the first time this year. I don’t know if it was beginner’s luck, but.....

I’ve just finished planting out my onions and garlic sets. I prefer autumn planting onion sets, not because I think there’s any difference in the final onion quality, it’s really because I get itchy planting fingers in the autumn. A few hours spent planting sets gives me just enough of a cultivation fix to see me through until next year.