Greetings gardeners and growers
We hope that your gardens are looking great and producing abundantly. August is now well and truly upon us, and as is often the case with this month, the unsettled weather is here too. Its nice to have some rain but some more sun would also be welcome. We are not ready for Autumn yet!
We are pleased to have just moved our office/storage/packing space to the Dartington estate which is only 15 minutes drive from our new growing site. We are really grateful to Dartington for finding a space for us while our space at the farm is being built over the winter. We are also extremely gratful to our friends Chinnie and Henry who's farm we have been based at until now.
At the end of July we started to process our tomato seeds. This will now be a weekly activity until around the end of October. Carry on reading to learn how we do this.
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Tomato seeds are easy to save. However the gel coating around the seed contains a germination-inhibiting enzyme which obviously we need to get rid of. This is done by fermenting the seeds, and then 'water-winnowing' them. The steps are as follows:
You can find a video of how to do this along with other seed-saving resources on our website, follow the link below
Resources |
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Go to shop |
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On Wednesday it was the spring equinox, which means that now the days are officially longer the nights. This feels like cause for celebration! (despite the fact that here in Devon it has not stopped raining for what feels like months, and we cannot get on our land to plant our seedlings). The second half of March is when we sow most of our annual flower seeds, so we are going full power on this right now. It's also the time to sow many other seeds - to see the full list click the button...
March is arguably the most exciting time of year for gardeners and growers. It's the time to sow many seeds and dream of the bountiful harvests they will produce in a few months' time. Every day feels (and is) a little bit longer than the last, and on warm days it can feel like winter is well and truly over. BUT... don't forget that we can have very cold snaps even in March - remember the Beast from the East?! So make sure you keep your seedlings warm and safe. To get busy in the seed shop...
Spring is on the way :) The days are getting noticably longer and the blackthorn in the hedges around us is starting to flower. The peak time for seed sowing for most gardeners is March, which is only a week away now, although the keen beans will have already sown quite a few things. What you can sow and when depends a lot on what kind of infrastructure you have for propagation. If you sow mainly directly into the soil then you want to wait till the soil warms a bit, but if you are lucky...