Friday, January 05, 2007

The first seeds order...

Finally, I have a list of what we will have a go at growing for our first year. A small order was made yesterday evening for the 'earlies' that we need to sow now or in the next 4-8 weeks. I've ordered:

Salad Potato 'Pink Fir Apple'
Salad Potato 'Roseval'
Tomato 'Tigerella' seeds
Beetroot 'Detroit 2 Bolivar' seeds
Aubergine 'Little Fingers' seeds

Total: £19.43


A perk of being a member of Garden Organic is a 10% discount when purchasing from the Organic Gardening Catalogue. Rather handy now that I have a whole veggie garden worth of seed etc to get!

I discovered yesterday that we need to get going on chitting the potatoes before they are planted (I've been saving a few egg boxes for this) and the Tomato 'Tigerella' seeds can be started off pretty early too. I have a little bit of previous tomato-growing experience under my belt now, and this years plan is to try and get a steady supply of tomatoes rather than gluts.

We will be growing our potatos in reusable potato planters (like a giant black sack I think) and as I will have 3, one might be used for carrots as these were pretty successful in a container last year. This depends on how big the planters are when they arrive as we got a decent crop of carrots from a large wooden container last year.

The postman also delivered a parcel this morning that I have been waiting for containing our new compost stirrer, a roll of copper tape to help the attempt to deter slugs and a small wooden bird feeder. Our next door neighbour is very successful in attracting many small birds to her garden with feeders and water etc so fingers crossed the little birds will be pleased with our offerings too!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to get my second earlies in early - usually on St Patricks Day but I've found its better to wait until the weather improves so now I delay until mid April - that way they are unlikely to be checked by an early May frost.

Kim said...

Thanks John for your potato wisdom! Thanks for linking me to your blog too.

One other thing that concerns me is the scary sounding potato blight at the end of the season, which I believe can be a problem if potatoes are left in too late. Is your later planting affected by this at all?

Anonymous said...

That catalog looks so helpful. Do they deliver to the US? I work at a seed catalog company, and I know there are lots of restriction on shipping plant material overseas.

Kim said...

It appears that they might be able to send orders outside of the UK looking at the website.

Take a look at this page on their website for more information:

http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/display.php?p=order