Out of my shed

If you haven’t already ordered your bare rooted roses or bare rooted raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, apple trees, espalier fruit trees etc, it’s time to do so now.

Bare rooted plants can normally be ordered from November until the end of March, but don’t leave it too late as the varieties you’ve decided on may well sell out. Why order bare rooted plants? Well;

• It’s the best time to transplant bare rooted plants while they’re dormant and so that they’re in place and settled in ready to grow in spring.
• Secondly, there’s a greater choice of  varieties of roses, fruit bushes and trees, bare rooted, than in pots.
• And thirdly, it’s cheaper.

Fruit trees and bushes have been dormant all winter, but growth is starting soon, so nurseries need to send out plants and trees before they start producing new growth and will often dig plants up from their nursery beds when you order them. As their roots are not in pots, they are easier and much cheaper to transport , but need to be planted in situ or potted up soon after arrival.

I’ve just ordered some autumn fruiting raspberries from Ken Muir and they should be with me late January/early February to plant straight into their growing position.

Also, I’m just getting my seed orders finalised. Have been lovingly leafing through catalogues for the last month and now it’s time to make those calls, send off forms or order online. I still have some mustard leaf seeds and cooler season lettuces, which I shall start growing undercover now, and will start my tomatoes off too in my heated propagator soon, but once the weather has warmed up (and who knows when this will be) I shall want to have my seeds ready so I can get planting annuals and my vegetables straight into the beds.

Must say, my favourite seed catalogue has to be Chiltern’s Seed Cataologue (which is £2.00 to order, but will be sent out free next year if you order from it in during 2011). They now have 2 separate catalogues, one for veg and another for flowers. Not only do Chiltern Seeds have a enormous range of seeds, many of which are lesser known plants and varieties, but the descriptions are very witty and hugely informative-just a great read . Also, I often take this slender volume with me when visiting gardens as it gives me instant information on most new plants that I spot on my travels.

Also, a quick plug for Rebekah’s Vegetable seeds. I bought a few packs of red and green mustard leaves at Hampton Court last summer. All plantings were very successful, very  delicious and carried on to produce leaves throughout autumn. They have even made it through the recent frosts and snow.Go to the website and download a pdf list of ‘old fashioned and unusual vegetables’ at very reasonable prices.

I’m a big lettuce eater and I find Sarah Raven’s Website and catalogues have a very comprehensive list of different lettuce varieties with great photos to help you choose too.

In 2009 and 2010 Garden Which? did their annual round-up of best seed catalogues. They scored not only on seed viability, but also took into account the quality of the growing instructions and the amount of photos to look at. Chilterns didn’t get into the top 6 as they have neither photos nor growing instructions. Dobies came in 1st  last year and 3rd this year (with 91% seed germination in 2009 and 81% this year), but in 2009 Nicky’s Nursery came in 2nd,  with a whopping 94% on seed viability. I haven’t ordered from Nicky’s before but I’m  certainly going to give them a try this year. This year’s No.1 seed brand was the  Organic Gardening Catalogue, and other top scorers were Wilko, Marshalls, Suttons and Mr. Fothergill’s.