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Herb Seeds
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How to :
Prepare Your Soil
The single most important element of your allotment is how you prepare
your soil. Find out how
click here
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Grow Vegetables
Find out what to look for and why you will get much better results with
fresh seeds.
click here
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Grow Herbs
Find out how to select Herbs and how you can easily divide them for
higher yielding crops
click here
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Grow Flowers
Do you want to grow Annuals or perennials ? Why cut flowers are fun and
easy.
click here
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Sell Products
Follow our step by step plan and not only will your allotment be fun -
it can also be highly profitable!
click here
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How to select and grow Herb
Seeds
Whether you are a professional horticulturalist, an enthusiastic allotment
gardener or simply want your garden to look it's best then for selecting
and growing herbs from seed there are 3 key items you will need to
concentrate on
1. Buy Fresh Seeds
When selecting seeds, many of us will consider things like colours and
scent as key determining factors. However, whilst these things
should play a part in our choices, they simply constitute just a small part
of the overall picture in how we should make our choices and there are so
many other things to consider too.
For best germination purchase new seed every year.
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Depending on the vegetable crop, leftover seed can be difficult to store and
often germinates poorly.
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Saving seed from previous harvests can be risky, too.
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It is safer to buy fresh seed from a reliable company.
One problem with saving seed from last year’s crop is the possibility of
getting plants that are not true to type.
2. Prepare the soil well
Planting a garden involves more than putting seeds
in the ground.
Preparing the seedbed, selecting seeds, and deciding when to plant come first. Will you sow seeds—and then thin them—or will you
try trans-planting?
For details see the article on soil preperation
3. Select the right Seeds
A garden or allotment cannot be planted in one
day. Some herbs grow best in cool temperatures, while others require
warm soil and air.
Choose what’s Right for the Climate
Plants,
herbs, flowers, fruit and vegetables all have
very individual preferred growing conditions and you need to consider
the conditions that they do best in as they are all affected in both a
positive or negative way by things such as exposure to sunlight, heat
and wind resistance etc. frost and extreme cold conditions.
Choosing what’s Right for the Location
You don’t see banana trees in UK gardens (yet) and, similarly, many
seeds won’t flourish as you want them to without a tropical climate so
get to understand the nature of our climate. The climate is slowly changing and you might
want to consider new plants, for example which are more drought
resistant.
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Recommended
A Practical Guide To Using And Growing Herbs
A complete guide to
using and growing your own herbs.
Information on the properties of Herbs, How to Cook with them and use them
for healing.
For details click
here |
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This month's Feature
Mistakes in Gardening Guides
Revealed
Read this special article before consulting
a gardening book or website
From
the desk of Andrew Simms (senior editor)
Just imagine that day in late summer when
you are happily harvesting your crop. The juicy tomatoes, crisp
carrots and crunchy celery. Every time you turn over the soil
there are perfect potatoes, you fill bags and bags of them. Let alone
the stunning flowers you have been cutting from late spring onwards....
Sounds great doesn't it ? When you open any
book, catalogue or website you will see perfect pictures. The
strawberries are just seconds away from being put in a bowl, even the salad
has no blemishes, bugs or imperfect leaves. When you read the books the
concept of coping with a hosepipe ban, rabbits tucking into your crops or the
mystery of the unpredicatable potatoes yields seem
years away.
Having had an allotment for many, many
years - in 2 completely different parts of the country - I have spent many
evenings consulting my gardening books. Surfing the internet for hours
looking for hints and tips. I always find it mystifying that the
'champion' allotment winners
always have PERFECT RESULTS. Yes, it could be the hours they spent but
probably more importantly they have build up a fountain of knowledge over
all the many years.
As I wanted this year to be my best year
ever I decided to make a detailed comparison of all the major gardening
books and reference guides. What struck me was how incomplete (and similar)
they are. Yes, they would all have the basics, which plants to put in
in March, April, May...... (pretty useless if your march is so wet you can't
walk on the soil, april is bone dry and your allotment is like concrete,
etc.)
Because I wanted this to be as scientific
as possible I decided to contact as many gardeners and allotment holders as
I could. They all made the same comment - books are great for background
info but "I get more useful information from Bill, Bob, etc.)
Having said that some of the champions
growers did let slip at times that they did have a few favourite books even
they would consult. Books which they would read at night and not
mention to often, as they contained snippets of information which will help
make a good allotment into a GREAT allotment or vegetable garden. There were 2 books which kept being mentioned as
containing
useful information. Not the same rehashed content as everywhere else, but
actually some very practical hints and tips.
These were the kind of books which:
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Will make the difference between 'good'
vegetables and prize winning vegetables
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The type of information you will want to
consult time and time again
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Particularly when it comes to such mundane
items like compost will make you wonder why you had never heard that
information before.
The books I managed to unearth are
mentioned below - but I am not sure how much longer they will be available
online before the publishers decide that a hardback copy in the shops (at a
far higher price) will be much more profitable.
This is the end of my search for the
ultimate gardening advice. I am glad I managed to find 2 sources of
information which will make this summer my best ever, can't wait to see the
results this season. Good luck with your allotment, vegetable garden
and growing season. I hope yours will also be the best one ever !
Top 3 Books
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"Home Vegetable Garden Secrets"
Hundreds of tips, techniques and secrets about
vegetable gardens, such as
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How to create a
planting table so you don't plant the wrong plants at
the wrong time - too early or too late
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How to keep your
plants living, reduce water use and save money, all at
the same time
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Many, many more
For details click
here
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" How to make the World's Best Compost. "
Are you one of the many who has a compost heap at the bottom of the garden
or corner of the allotment ? Every wonder just how the most
successful horticulturalists get their plants, flowers and vegetables to
look so good?
One of the secrets is the compost they use. Rob Turners book
contains Step by step advice on how to make Natural Fertilizer.
Without using Bins, Turning Or Odour
For details click Here
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"Companion Planting"
As mentioned earlier
For details click Here!
Herb Seeds A to Z, Anise seeds,
Basil seeds, Borage seeds,
Caraway seeds,
Cardoon seeds,
Catnip seeds,
Chamomile seeds,
Chervil seeds,
Chive seeds, Cinnamon seeds,
Coriander seeds,
Cress seeds, Cumin seeds,
Dill
seeds, Fennel seeds,
Mint seeds, Oregano seeds,
Sage seeds, Sorrel seeds
herb seeds |
