It has been bone dry here in Devon for a while now and even the river Dart is looking sad and low.

It's certainly great beach weather for the summer holidays (a rare thing in August) but many farmers have been struggling to give their crops enough water and there will certainly be crop losses.

Read on for some tips on how to prioritise your own water use in your garden at home, or allotment.

Sowing for autumn and winter harvests

Although we are half way through August now there's still a bit of time to get your seeds in for winter greens and other late season crops.

If you havn't tried growing some winter crops before then we highly recommend giving it a go.

There's loads of stuff which you can sow in the next month which will keep you nourished through the winter, not to mention saving you some valuable money with the absurd cost of living hike that we are seeing right now.

Our Second Spring seed collections are packed full of great varieties for sowing now, and will be available for only a couple more weeks. (Check our August sowing page for more ideas)

They are great value for money as they have a 10% discount on buying individual packets, and come packaged in a lovely kraft paper envelope with a full colour insert inside :)

​

​

Prioritising water use in a drought

If you've got a lot of plants in your patch and a shortage of time and/or water then knowing how to prioritize which plants you water is a really useful thing. Here are a few tips:

• Plants in pots are very prone to drying out so do water these if you can
• Salad greens tend to be shallow-rooted so cant access water deeper in the soil, these will be one of the first to suffer water stress, and may bolt if they get too dry
• Newly planted/sown seedlings have not had a chance to grow deep roots so do water these
• Do have a dig around in your soil a few inches below the surface, you may find that there is more moisture than you thought down there
• N.B. the most important thing in your garden which needs watering is YOU! Remember to stay hydrated out there :)

Discounted seeds for those in need

To help support people through the cost of living crisis we have decided to offer a small amount of orders each month with a whopping 50% discount on them.

You can use the coupon "DISC50" to get this discount.

This system is based solely on trust, we will not be assessing the individual circumstances of people and when the coupon is used up each month it will not be available again till the next month, so please consider other people when using it and only use it if you really need to.

It will only work on orders between £20 and £40.

Happy harvesting :)

Fred, Ronja, and the rest of the team

P.S. This heat is great for seed saving, dont forget our online seed saving course is currently on offer :) save some money on buying seeds next year (and forever!)

​