My favourite UK organic garden seed suppliers.

About now is the best time to start thinking about buying seeds to grow your own veggies.  It's a little too early to start planting anything other than onions and peppers, but it's never too early to stock up your seed supplies! 

This year I only want to grow from organic seed, and I have a few suppliers to share in case you want to do the same.  Most of them are fairly cheap and have reasonable postage rates, and they're all companies I've used for at least a year or two and can personally recommend.  

Premier Seed Direct

Premier Seeds Direct is my favourite source of organic seeds.  They're based in the UK and are certified organic by the Soil Association and  DEFRA.  Premier Seeds Direct sell through eBay, their prices are super duper reasonable, starting at 99p, postage is fast and it's usually free or 40p.  I've been buying my seed from them for years and I've never had a dud batch of anything, all my seeds grow nicely and healthy and beautifully.  (they sell non-organic seed too, so be sure to choose form the organic veg or herbs selection).

The Herbary

The Herbary sell organic seed on eBay (it gets a bit confusing, their shop name is organicseedspecialists, the seller's name is beanandherb, and the seed packets say The Herbary.  But just ignore that because their seeds are so nice!).  They sell flowers, veg and herb seeds, all organic and DEFRA certified, and I really love that there's no plastic in the seed packets.  All the prices are under £2 and postage is £1.50 (just remember to add items to basket then request total from seller so you get combined shipping if you buy more than one packet!).

Victoriana Nursery

Victoriana Nursery grow using organic principles but don't have any official certification (you can read more about that here).  First of all, the packaging is SUPER cute!  They have lots of unusual varieties, I've had a couple of good packets of seed from them, as well as some lovely trees and herb plants through the post.  Prices go from around £1.50 upwards and postage is from £1.95.  

The Real Seed Catalogue

I'm not entirely sure if The Real Seed Catalogue are certified organic, but they sell non-GMO, open pollinated, DEFRA certified seeds, which is good enough for me.  There are so many weird and wonderful varieties stocked, with some great stories behind them, lots of growing and seed sowing information online and everything I've bought from them has grown really well.  Prices start from around £2 and postage starts at £1.96.  

Happy growing everyone! 

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Diary of a suburban edible garden, April 2017.

It's all seeds all the time here!  We're going away for a week mid May, so I'm madly trying to get everything I've sown hardened off and planted out before we go.  Once we're back I'll plant a load more I'm sure! 

Joe's still digging out the back of garden bank of soil and rubble.  Does this photo show how big the bank is?  I've included a bamboo cane for scale, but now I come to think about it I can't remember how long the cane was.  I think we'll be able to fit an 8x8 foot shed here now, and before there was a 6x4 one, so lots of space made!

All the soil from the bank has been wheel barrowed to the new raised bed.  The new bed is on the lawn, so I prepared under it by lifting the turf a little with my garden fork, then adding a layer of newspaper, twigs, hay and coir compost, Joe added the soil, and then near the top there are some layers of home made compost, organic peat free compost and more coir.  I worked out that the beds have a capacity of over 300 litres, which is a load of soil!


I've planted the bed up with some lazy housewife beans, burlotti beans, strawberries, sweetcorn, garlic chives, rats tail radishes, pink swiss chard, a geranium and a poached egg plant.  There's loads more to put in!  The two plates are coving ollas, clay pots buried under ground to help with watering. 

All those seedlings will need feeding soon, so I've gathered lots of weeds for making weed tea.  Mines mostly nettles and dandelion, just whack them into a bucket, cover with water, put a lid on (most important, it stinks!), then leave to ferment for 2 or 3 weeks.  You dilute it 1 part tea to 10 parts water when it's ready and plants lurve it.

I nearly bought a rosemary plant from the shops, but I decided to see if I could be thriftier and take a cutting from my existing plant.  I just snipped a growing tip off, plonked it on the windowsill in a little pot of water for 2 weeks and it's rooted!  Yey free plant!

I love the side garden, but it never looks very nice in photos.

I've just ordered three new trees for down here from the Woodland Trust, all native British trees that are good for wildlife.  I've got a Rowan, a Hazel and a Dog Rose.  I think I can fit 2 more apple trees in too!

The apple trees are blossoming for the first time.  Despite the fact that I picked them up for a couple of pounds each in the sales last year.  And that I've pruned them severely following instructions from my Grow a Little Fruit Tree book.

I'm trying a new way of weeding in the side garden too.  My new rule is that I can only remove weeds when I've got something to replace them with.  Otherwise I'm just clearing the weeds, leaving bare soil, and more weeds are coming along to fill in the bare patches!  You can see here I've weeded in front of the apple tree, then planted strawberries, thyme, garlic chives, an auricula, lavender, a pretty shrub with pink flowers and some yellowish creeping stuff.  I'm growing some crimson clover in pots which I'll add in too, so there's a good mix of ground cover, edible stuff and nitrogen fixers that are good for the soil.

Here's the back garden in it's full glory.  Someone (Kezzie) asked how big my garden was a while ago, I've got out the tape measure and it's 15 metres long, 7.5 metres wide (50ft by 24ft) and the bed at the side of the garden is 7 metres by 1.5 metres.  If you'd like another fact about my garden then I can tell you that the main back garden is 0.028 of an acre.  I can also tell you that I still haven't painted the fence!

I'll leave you with these garden friends, wildlife is my chum this month, they're all buzzing and flying at me like I'm a somewhat unwilling Disney character.  The birds give zero effs right now and would probably actually land on top of me while I'm digging, they know that if I'm about I'll probably uncover a worm or 2.  I've already had a wasp in my hair too!  I do like nature but flappy things do make me slightly nervous and sweaty!

These bee flies and butterflies are much calmer friends!

How are your gardens?  Are you being dive-bombed by birds too?

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Diary of a suburban edible garden, March 2017.

I'm so busy this month in the garden, I have so much I want to get done!

I've been planting seeds all over the place, down the side garden I've planted Californian poppy, crimson clover and vetch seeds around my apple tree.  Clover and vetch are used as green manures, their roots help the soil structure and fix nitrogen, I'm hoping by planting them here I can improve the soil a little, it's really poor in this bed.  I've also planted a little clematis up the fence at the back.

Lots of raspberry suckers have popped up this spring.  I'm really happy about that, because yey, I get free plants and free food!  Nothing else really grows very happily here, apart from weeds and Mediterranean herbs, so if the raspberries want to take over that's fine by me! 

I made a cute little washing up bowl pond this month.  This is recommended by the RSPB as a good way to attract wildlife into your garden.  Mum gave me a bucket o' pond weed and frogspawn from her pond so I'm really hoping I get some frogs!

I decided it was high time I cleaned out my greenhouse, it's all shiny now.  And I've planted a LOT of seeds (see here for a list of everything I'm planting).  That packet of mixed perennials cost about 70p on sale last year, I can't wait to see what grows from it! 

I've been seed starting in cut down loo rolls and egg boxes, and propagating in our conservatory.  I'm starting the seeds in there, then moving them to the greenhouse once they've grown on a bit.

Look at the buds on these blueberries - can't wait!  'Scuse the weeds.

Joe's been working hard on the hedge at the back of the garden.  He's trimmed a lot off the height, the only problem is it's quite thin now and people walking down the alley keep noseying in our garden! 

The next job is to dig away some of that bank of soil at the base of the hedge and reclaim the garden!  The soil there comes out several feet and we're going to have to put that soil somewhere, soooo... I bought a couple of raised beds.  They're phase one of our project to get rid of the (horrible, patchy, weedy, bumpy) lawn.  I've only put one together so far, but there's another exactly the same.  We're going to fill them with soil and plant them up, then start mulching and planting over the lawn.  Until it's all gone.  Buh-bye lawn. 

It's looking very 'work in progress' right now.  I must finish painting the fence before summer kicks in and there's too many plants to get through.  I've got to get rid of that table too, it's been in the middle of the garden for ever, can you tell I'm not quite sure what to do with it! 

How's your garden this month?

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Garden plans and dreams for 2017.

It's the time of year when I start dreaming dreamy dreams about my garden.  It may look particularly brown and bedraggled at the moment, but I have great plans for it in 2017.

What's in my seed tin?

I have a whole tin full up of lovely seeds, some new and some that have been lingering for a while.  This is what I'll be growing this year.

Beans

Some broad beans from seed I saved, not sure of the variety.

Lazy housewife climbing french bean (Real Seed)

Peas 

Golden sweet yellow mange tout (Read Seed)

Bijou giant sugar pea (Real Seed)

Leafy things

Pink passion chard (Read Seed)

Red baby leaf bulls beet (The Herbary)

Red russian kale (The Herbary)

Green salad bowl lettuce (The Herbary)

Erbette perpetual spinach beet (The Herbary)

Salad bowl mixed lettuce (Wilkos)

Black seeded simpson lettuce (Premier seeds direct)

Kale nero di toscana (Premier seeds direct)

Little gem lettuce (Premier seeds direct)

Spinach beet (Wilkos) 

Greyhound cabbage (Wilkos)

Dwarf green curled kale (Johnsons)

Bright lights chard (Johnsons)

Pink flamingo Swiss chard (J&L Gourmet vegetable seed)

Iceberg lettuce 2 (Johnsons)

Oniony things

Lilia purple spring onion (Premier seeds direct)

Tokyo long white bunching onion (Premier seeds direct)

Chives (Premier seeds direct)

Chinese/garlic chives (Premier seeds direct)

North Holland bloodred redmate spring onion (Premier seeds direct)

Ramsons/wild garlic (Just seed)

Musselburgh leek (Premier seeds direct)

Bulgarian giant leek (Real seeds)

Tomatoes

Mortgage lifter (Premier seeds direct)

Tiny Tim (Premier seeds direct)

San Marzano 2 (Premier seeds direct)

Courgettey things

Patisson blanc patty pan squash (Real Seed)

Verde di Milano courgette (Real Seed)

Sweetcorn

Minipop F1 (Unwins)

Carrots

Rainbow mix (Premier seeds direct)

Radish 

Rat's tail radish (Elfskin edibles)

I have lots of flower seeds too!  As you can see I have waaaaay too many leafy things seeds, I'm going to experiment with growing micro-greens this year and try to use up the surplus of seed.

I buy my seed online usually, and try to buy organic.  I like the Real Seed Company and I buy from Ebay too, I particularly like Premier Seeds Direct who sell lots of organic seed, but I've bought from The Herbary and Elfskin Edibles too.

New year, new compost bin?

I've decided the compost bin I bought when we moved here was an expensive mistake.  It's way too big and kind of hard to open, I'm waiting for a dry day to empty, disassemble and clean it, then I'll try to sell it or pass it on.  I have a slot together compost bin that I've inherited from my mum, so I'll use that, and my freecycled wormery, but what I really, really, really want and kind of NEED is a Hotbin.  Have you seen them?  They hot compost garden and food waste, get up to 60 degrees centigrade and there's a vent at the top to let out steam!  It's super duper expensive, £185, I'm dithering over buying one, if I save my Christmas money and put £20 a month away until April I'd be able to afford one pretty painlessly, I just hope it isn't an expensive gimmick.  

Vegan fertilisers...

Oh maaan, I really need to do something about my soil.  I was looking back at old gardeny blog posts and my veggies grew so well when I had a little plot in Mum's garden.  Look at this photo, look at the lush, green, large leaves, nothing like what I get from my garden now.

What I get is all yellow-y, and tiny and inevitably gets eaten by slugs.  I'm going to add lots of compost, continue with no dig, polyculture gardening methods, make nettle tea, add worm compost and sow green manure in the autumn.  I hope that'll do some good. 

Garden inspiration for 2017

I've been leafing through my favourite gardening books - the James Wong and Alys Fowler ones are my favourite (Alys Fowler has a Hotbin, so I should definitely get one right?!).  I keep going back to Grow a Little Fruit Tree, I still haven't got round to giving my apple trees the chop, but I must do it soon!

I've been rewatching The Edible Garden on BBC i-player, and I like Big Dreams Small Spaces on the TV too.

There are some blogs and instagrams I love looking at for garden inspiration too,

Alys Fowler's Guardian column.

James Wong's Guardian column.  

Charles Dowding's Instagram.

Bohemian Raspberry's Instagram.

Urban Veg Patch's Instagram.

Permaculture Girl's Instagram.

You Grow Girl's Instagram. 

Bryony Willis' Instagram.

Tricia Eco's Instagram.

Do you have any garden plants for the coming year?

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Make one small change, save your own seed.

Making one small change at a time can make becoming eco friendly loads easier.  Lots of small changes add up to a big difference.

Saving seeds from the fruit, vegetable and flowery plants in your garden is good for lots of reasons.  You get seeds for free.  You can share or swap your seeds with your friends.  You help preserve heritage or rare varieties of plants.  By saving seed from plants that are happy in your garden, strong ones with a good crop, you get seed that will be planted and grow up happy in the unique conditions present in your garden.  If you're favourite variety stops being sold, you have your own supply!  You won't be giving you pennies to questionable big agricultural companies.

You can't save seed from plants you've grown using seed labelled F1 or hybrid, you have to buy those kinds every year.  If you want to save seed you need to go for open pollinated or heritage varieties.

There's no better beginners guide to saving seed than the free one available on the Real Seeds website.  So far this year I've saved seed from my chives, and calendula plants!

Do you save seed?

Don't forget to check out my other small changes to help you live a greener life!

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Garden, April 2016.

I like April because things start growing!  The garden's full of forget me nots, which are my favourite.  The magnolia is flowering too.

The garden's full of squirrels too!  Look at this one, he's so cute!

The main excitement this month has been a new fence.  It's been a bit of a pain, because I had to dig up all my plants from the side garden, and the builders have stomped all over the soil and made a muddy mess.  But it looks nice now and we have loads more security and privacy.  These photos show before, during, after and our new gate!  

The big old pyracantha fell down when the old fence was removed, and I think it's too heavy to stand up again.  So I'm chopping it down to stumps and if it grows back I'll keep it under control as a small bush.  Think I'll be there for a while chopping it down though!

My other most exciting thing this month is that I got a wormery!  Someone very kind gave me one after I posted an ad. on Freegle.  I ordered worms online and they're settling in ok.  I'm so happy to have this, my soil is quite poor and I think the worm compost will really help. This model of worm bin costs £80 which I can't really afford at the moment, so I definitely feel lucky and thankful to the lovely people who passed it on to me.  

The front garden raised bed seems to be ok, it's grown a few mushrooms though, as well as the garlic and onions.  I have the supplies ready to fill my second raised bed, I'm just waiting for the mood to do it to strike, then I'll plant my courgettes in it.

I have sprouters in the new greenhouse!

And I don't want to speak too soon but I think this blueberry might have fruit this year.  

Here's the whole garden.  We've had the house a year this month, the garden is so different from what it was, check out last April's garden post to see.

How are your gardens this month?

I'm trying to spend 20 minutes a day in the garden, and I'm posting about it on Instagram.

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13 plastic free ways to start seeds.

Why would you want to have a plastic free garden?  Well, what about all that plastic in the sea, or the risk of chemicals leeching out of plastics and into our foods and our environment, or the fact that lots of plastics can't be recycled and hang around, literally, forever.  Forever. 

Thankfully, there are lots of ways to start you garden seeds off without plastic.

Loo rolls are my plastic free seed starter pots of choice.  You can cut them to size, fold over the bottoms to make pots, or use them full size.  I like to pop some into a larger container to help them stand up, fill them with compost and then plant my seeds.  When the seed is ready to plant out you can leave them in the loo roll tube, because it's cardboard it'll biodegrade.

I'm vegan, but my sis-in-law is a cake maker so I have a ready supply of cardboard (free range) egg boxes, which make perfect, ready divided, plastic free seed trays.

I've used loads of tea cups and old crockery this year, because they're plastic free and they make my greenhouse look prettier.  You have to be careful with drainage as there's no hole in the bottom to let out excess water.  I've found I'm more likely to have a problem with the soil drying out than being too wet, as it's quite warm in my greenhouse.  To prevent drainage problems you can add some gravel to the bottom of the tea cup, or drill a hole in the base and pop a saucer underneath.  

Terracotta pots are simple, classic and pretty.  You can buy them pretty easily and reuse them for years.  Lovely!

Lots of things can be sown directly in the ground, bypassing the need for any sort of pot to start them off!  I prefer to start most things off in pots because I plant in patches and drifts, then it's difficult to tell my seedlings from weedlings and I might hoe them out.  If you don't have a particularly weedy garden, you plant in straight rows, or you're planting big seeds (like beans) they'll be fine in the ground.

If you eat eggs then try growing seeds in eggshells (free range or home hens please!).

You can make round newspaper pots, with or without one of those newspaper-pot-making-thingies.

I like these rectangular newspaper pots too.

If you're in a rush to get your seeds started try this method, which uses a glass container with a lid and tissue paper, and claims to be super-speedy!

Make soil blocks for plastic free, pot free planting!

If you're a tea lover you can plant your seeds in used tea bags!  (EDIT - it's been rightly pointed out to me that some tea bags contain plastic, an online search can tell you whether your usual brand contains plastic.  If it does maybe it's time to change to a plastic free brand?!)

Make your own paper seed starter pots from scratch using paper pulp and a muffin tray.

Use citrus peel as a cute mini seedling pot.

How do you start your seeds off?  Do you garden plastic-free?  I'd love to know about it!

Linking up with Flaunt it Friday.

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