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Decorate your life with plants

Decorate your life

<h2>with 
plants!</h2>

&nbsp;

From mid February we stock a good range of seed potatoes, including first earlies, second earlies and maincrop, plus red and white onion sets and 3 varieties of French garlic.

When space is limited, you need ingenuity to get the most from your plot. Growing veg in containers is a&nbsp;lifeline for patio gardeners, and helps beef up the harvest from handkerchief-sized gardens, too. Follow our&nbsp;five rules for bumper container harvests every year:

Go large: bigger pots are definitely better, as the more your veg can spread their roots out, the happier&nbsp;they&#39;ll be. There&#39;s a range of roomy pots in our garden centre.

Mix and match: don&#39;t be afraid to grow several types of veg in the same pot. Plant quick-growing carrots&nbsp;around tall spinach, for example, to double your harvest.

Water, water, water: never let containers go dry: it&#39;s a recipe for bolting lettuces, drooping spinach and poor&nbsp;fruiting. Water daily in summer, adding liquid feed once a week.

Use your walls: troughs alongside fences and walls hold climbing beans and give you twice the space to&nbsp;play with. Nail trellis to the wall for support.

Choose the right varieties: veg with shallower roots, like beetroot, do best; or try varieties bred specially for&nbsp;pots. Look for &#39;patio&#39;, &#39;dwarf&#39; or &#39;container&#39; on seed packets in our garden centre.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations% for more information and advice about growing vegetables in&nbsp;containers.

Veg for containers

Harvesting vegetables from your garden is hugely satisfying, and you&#39;ll revolutionise your tastebuds:&nbsp;food picked just minutes before it&#39;s on your plate has a colour, flavour and crunchiness that have to be&nbsp;experienced to be believed.

We have everything in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre to turn your garden into a haven of productivity: here&#39;s a selection&nbsp;to get you started.

Seeds: most veg are grown from seeds, from tomatoes to carrots and lettuces. Take your pick from the huge&nbsp;range in our garden centre.

Onion Sets, Garlic and Seed Potatoes:&nbsp;in stock from mid February

Strip&nbsp;plants: &nbsp;we also stock strip plants -baby veg plants ready to go straight&nbsp;into containers or out into the garden.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations% for more information and advice about growing vegetables.

Annuals

Seeds

Perennials

Vegetables

Annual plants are here-today, gone-tomorrow party girls. They may have just one season in the sun, but what a season: they flower for an incredibly long time and are invariably so spectacularly beautiful you&#39;ll lose your heart to them.

We stock two kinds of annual in our garden centre in %locations%: hardy annual seeds to sow direct from March onwards, and half-hardies to sow under cover as they don&#39;t like frost. Here are just some you&#39;ll find in our garden centre.

Hardy annuals: 
Ammi majus: lacy white flowers over feathery foliage 
Poached egg plant (Limnanthes douglasii): cheery yellow-and-white flowers 
Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena): starry blue or white flowers followed by architectural seedpods 
Ladybird poppies (Papaver communtatum &#39;Ladybird&#39;): scarlet papery petals each with a black blotch 
Nasturtiums: abundant red, orange or creamy flowers over rounded leaves

Half-hardy annuals: 
Cosmos &#39;Purity&#39;: clear white daisies with yellow centres on long stems 
Zinnias: pompom flowers in brilliant scarlets, yellows and purples 
Swan river daisy: profuse mauve daisies tumbling over pots and baskets 
Nemesia: another perfect container plant with pretty, delicate blooms 
Tobacco plant (Nicotiana): charming open flowers in pink, cream and green over big leafy rosettes

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing and growing annuals.

Watching a seed germinate and grow is a hugely exciting part of your gardening year: you hardly dare&nbsp;believe it&#39;s going to work, yet invariably that tiny kernel sends up a sturdy green sprout. The plants you raise&nbsp;from seed are always a bit special, so this year try raising something new from the hundreds of varieties from&nbsp;our garden centre.

Annuals: hardy annuals like love-in-a-mist, marigolds and nasturtiums are easiest of all and provide&nbsp;incredibly long seasons of colour from a few seeds scattered direct into the ground in spring.

Half-hardy annuals include all the bedding plants: in our garden centre you&#39;ll find seed to sow under cover&nbsp;in spring for colourful containers all summer long including pelargoniums, petunias, surfinias and nemesia.

Perennials: several perennials are very easy from seed, flowering in their first year and coming back again&nbsp;and again. Try echinacea, rudbeckia, grasses like deschampsia and hardy geraniums.

Vegetable seeds: our large&nbsp;selection of Country Value seeds is perfect for the grow-your-own enthusiast, with every&nbsp;veg from cucumbers to swede.&nbsp;

Herbs: we stock a range of Jekka&#39;s Herb seeds selected by Jekka McVicar the UK&#39;s No.1 herb expert. There&#39;s nothing like using herbs in cooking fresh fom your garden.

&nbsp;

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about the seeds in our range.

The real heart-stopping, breathtaking beauty of a garden comes from that most easy-going of all the plant&nbsp;groups: the perennials, generous, free-flowering plants which die down each winter only to bubble up again&nbsp;from spring, peaking in midsummer with a fireworks display of flowers.

Pack your garden in %locations%&nbsp;with perennials from the huge selection in our garden centre and you&#39;ll have something in&nbsp;flower for every week of the year. Here are a few tips to help you choose:

Visit the garden centre often as we have different perennials in stock according to the season. Choose whatever takes your fancy each month for really long-lasting display.

Cut perennials back after flowering and they&#39;ll often give you a second flush of flowers. You&#39;ll find&nbsp;secateurs for the job in our garden centre.

Plant the right plant in the right place: there are perennials for every spot in your garden, whether it&#39;s&nbsp;shady, sunny, dry or damp. Ask our garden centre staff for help if you&#39;re not sure which to choose.

Plant in threes or fives for greatest impact: drifts or groups of the same plant really catch your eye and&nbsp;demand to be noticed.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing perennials.

Filling your house with the colour and fragrance of fresh flowers cut from the garden is one of the great pleasures of gardening. The trouble is, though, if you take all the flowers from the garden, there's nothing left to look at outside.
The answer is to create yourself a cutting garden – an area of your garden dedicated to raising flowers to enjoy indoors. The whole purpose of such a garden is to be harvested regularly, rather like a vegetable garden, so you don't mind if it's sometimes got a few bare patches.
You'll find all you need to create your cutting garden in our garden centre in %locations%. Here's how to go about it:
<ol>
<li>Find the right spot: you'll need somewhere in full sun, as your plants will only flower to their full potential with plenty of light. Planting densely also demands a lot from your soil, so choose the best-quality patch you've got.</li>
<li>
Get ready: before you start, dig over the area, removing weeds and large stones, and work in plenty of well-rotted farmyard manure. Then put in hedging and edging: you'll find plants for low hedging in our garden centre, and materials to lay a smart path.
</li>
<li>Choose your plants: select 'hardy annual' seeds from the range in our garden centre. Great choices are white, frothy Ammi majus, Cosmos bipinnatus with lovely daisy-like flowers and of course sweetpeas to train up a wigwam in the centre.</li>
<li>
Start sowing: Sow your flowers from March onwards just like vegetables, in straight lines to make picking them easier. Make shallow drills and sprinkle the seed sparingly along the bottom. Cover with a little soil, label and leave.
</li>
<li>Keep the display going: sow little and often so you've got some plants to pick, some coming up to flowering and some just sown. Support taller varieties like larkspur by sticking canes in each corner of the row and threading round string at intervals up the height of the plants.</li>
</ol>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about planting an annual cutting garden.

Annual cutting gardens

Containers

Fruit

Container plants

Herbs

Most plants will grow quite happily in containers and you can make just as fabulous a display using plants in&nbsp;containers as you can in the garden - great news if you&#39;re short on outdoor space. In our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;you&#39;ll&nbsp;find a container for every plant: just match your plants to the pot that suits it best for instant success.

Pots come in a huge range of styles and materials from ceramic to terracotta, stainless steel and stone. Let&nbsp;your imagination run riot creating mixed displays of perennials and shrubs in larger pots for instant impact.

Troughs and grow spaces work brilliantly for growing vegetables on the patio. Place troughs against a wall&nbsp;to grow climbing beans, or divide a grow space as small as 1m x 1m into squares for planting a surprisingly&nbsp;wide variety of fruit and veg.

Hanging baskets brighten up the dingiest of entrance ways with brilliant scarlet pelargoniums or, for&nbsp;something different, tumbling tomatoes or chillies. In our garden centre you&#39;ll find not only the baskets but&nbsp;also liners and water-retaining gel to mix into the compost to hold on to moisture for longer.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing containers.

Healthy and supremely tasty, fresh-picked fruit from the garden is one of the real luxuries of growing your&nbsp;own. A British climate is perfect for growing so many different types from tart rhubarb in early spring to sweet&nbsp;summer strawberries and crunchy autumn apples.

We stock a&nbsp;range of fruit in our garden centre in %locations%: look out for container-grown bushes and trees to buy all&nbsp;year round.

Fruit trees to enjoy in your garden include traditional apples, pears and plums &ndash; we stock many traditional&nbsp;heritage varieties with outstanding flavour and fascinating histories.&nbsp;

Berries and currants are superb value, producing years of plentiful harvests from just a few plants.&nbsp;Gooseberries are first, fruiting from May, while currants (black, white and red) take over in summer.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing fruit.

Growing your plants in containers opens up a whole new world in which you can experiment with different&nbsp;combinations, ring the changes or totally overhaul your planting at the drop of a hat. A huge variety of plants&nbsp;from our garden centre grow happily in containers, giving you potted colour from January to December.

Spring: Tulips arrive in our garden centre from autumn: pack shoulder-to-shoulder into large containers for a&nbsp;cracking display. Other spring bulbs to try in pots include crocuses, daffodils and snowdrops.

Summer: Fill your containers to overflowing with dazzling bedding plants - in our garden centre from spring&nbsp;onwards. Container-grown veg are a great option when space is limited: we stock strip veg and 9cm pot veg to make&nbsp;planting even more straightforward.

Autumn: Many shrubs look beautiful framed in a large container and many have spectacular autumn&nbsp;displays. In our garden centre look out for graceful deep purple acers, brilliantly berried skimmia and pretty&nbsp;variegated hollies.

Winter: Combine heathers chosen from the range in our garden centre with white-berried gaultherias or red-twigged dogwood and the large, leathery evergreen leaves of bergenia for winter cheer just outside your&nbsp;door.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about plants for containers.

Herbs have been grown in gardens for hundreds of years: most have a long history, handed down from&nbsp;generation to generation, with uses from medicine to cosmetics and beauty products to flavouring cooking.

They&#39;re easy-going plants which can be tucked into almost any corner of the garden, but to plunge yourself&nbsp;into their fascinating world dedicate a sunny spot to a herb garden. You&#39;ll find it&#39;s full of fragrance and flowers&nbsp;all summer: and best of all, it&#39;ll quickly become part of your daily routine to pick peppermint for your tea,&nbsp;marigolds to brew up some face cream, or a bay leaf or two for the evening meal.

To start you off, here are some essential herbs for your herb garden from the wide selection in our garden&nbsp;centre in&nbsp;%locations%:

Culinary: Mediterranean herbs to give your cooking flavour and colour, these include rosemary, bay, thyme,&nbsp;marjoram and parsley.

Medicinal: make teas and tisanes to boost your health and well-being with peppermint, chamomile,&nbsp;echinacea and lemon balm.

Cosmetic: moisturising cream, hair dye and face packs are all possible from herbs grown in your garden: try&nbsp;marigolds, soapwort (Saponaria), catmint and witch hazel.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing herbs.

When space is really limited, gardening needs ingenuity. With a few clever tricks and some innovative gadgets, though, you can turn even a balcony into a productive garden overflowing with fruit, vegetables and herbs.
You'll find plenty of useful gear to help you build your balcony garden in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre, from planters to dwarf apple trees specially bred to grow in restricted spaces. Here are our top tips for balcony success.
<ul>
<li>Use large planters wherever possible, so they act more like raised beds than containers and give your veg a longer root run. Generally, the larger the container you give your veg, the happier they'll be: if your balcony is high-rise, though, get a structural engineer in first to check it can take the weight of containers full of damp compost and plants. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Use successional sowing to keep your pots working hard all year. As soon as you harvest a crop, re-sow the container or replant with vegetable plug plants for a really quick replacement. That way you'll always have new crops growing up as you eat your way through the ones you sowed earlier. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Grow container veg varieties which are better suited to growing with their roots restricted. Good choices are Courgette 'Patio Star', Aubergine 'Ophelia', Broad Bean 'The Sutton' and Pea 'Bingo' – all grow small but have bumper crops for their size. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Don't forget the fruit as there are plenty of long-cropping varieties which grow quite happily in containers including gooseberries, blueberries and blackcurrants. Strawberries do better in pots, as they're off the ground away from slugs; and you can even grow 'Minarette' apple and pear trees, trained on a single stem. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Take care over feeding and watering as your plants depend entirely on you for their every need. Automatic watering systems share the load: you'll find timers, hoses and dripper systems in our garden centre. Add a weekly liquid feed when you water: liquid seaweed acts as a general-purpose tonic, but when plants are flowering a high-potash tomato feed encourages plenty of fruit.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing fruit and vegetables on a balcony.

Growing fruit and veg on balconies

Hanging baskets make a bright splash of colour against a wall or fence, filled with brilliant scarlet pelargoniums or tumbling begonias. But don't just stick to bedding plants this year: try planting baskets which are productive as well as beautiful.
Edible hanging baskets are a great way to squeeze a little more produce out of your garden. Several types of fruit and veg do better raised off the ground: strawberries, for example, are kept well away from slugs, so you get to pick your crop unmunched and perfect.
Mix several different types of edible in the same basket to create a vibrant display of contrasting foliage and fruits: you can even create an 'instant dish' by planting complementary veg together, like tomato and basil for all the ingredients you need to make a flavoursome Mediterranean sauce.
You'll find everything you need to create an edible hanging basket in our garden centre in %locations%, from the baskets themselves to liners, compost, water-retaining gel to cut down on the watering workload, and of course plants and seeds. Here are some great varieties to try growing up in the air this year:
<ul>
<li>Tumbling tomatoes cascade fetchingly in jewels of red and yellow. Choose a container variety like 'Gartenperle' or 'Hundreds and Thousands'. Keep well-watered and feed with liquid fertiliser once a week.</li>
<li>
Chillies are Mexican firecrackers which love a hot, dry spot and don't mind restricted roots. Try multicoloured 'Numex Twilight' or tumbling 'Basket of Fire'.
</li>
<li>Peas: mangetout peas ('Shiraz' is a purple-podded variety) and dwarf types like 'Bingo' or 'Little Marvel' do exceptionally well in hanging baskets and don't need any support. Choose a larger basket and water well.</li>
<li>
Strawberries: fill a hanging basket with two or three strawberry plants and they'll froth joyously over the edge. Prolific varieties include 'Cambridge Favourite' or intensely-flavoured alpine 'Mara des Bois'.
</li>
<li>Herbs: Mediterranean herbs love conditions in hanging baskets. Hang your basket right by the back door for easy picking. Herbs that do well in hanging baskets include thyme, marjoram, basil and summer savory.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about creating edible hanging baskets.

Edible hanging baskets

The record for the biggest pumpkin in the world is a holy grail for giant vegetable growers: these days you need a forklift truck just to get your pumpkin to the showground for weighing.
Most of us can't manage pumpkins quite that big, but it's fun to see how big a monster you can manage. A pumpkin growing competition is also a great way to get the kids involved in gardening.
In our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;you'll find all you need for your crack at conquering the giant pumpkin world: just follow our easy steps to success.
<ul>
<li>Choose the right seed: 'Atlantic Giant' is a recognised monster pumpkin, but other varieties to try include 'Hundredweight' and 'Mammoth'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Sow seed: in April sow one seed to a 10cm pot and keep in a frost-free greenhouse, heated propagator or on a sunny windowsill. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Keep the plants warm: cold will set back growth so bring your pumpkin indoors if nights are cold. Pot on into larger containers as it grows. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Dig a pumpkin pit: in late May, dig a hole in the garden about 1 metre wide and deep. Fill with a 50:50 mix of compost and well-rotted farmyard manure, and add slow-release fertiliser. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Plant out: Plant your young pumpkin plant into the pit once all threat of frost has passed, and cover with a lantern cloche until the plant grows too big. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Feed and water: Make sure your pumpkin never goes short of water, and feed weekly with liquid seaweed. When it starts flowering, switch to tomato food to encourage fruits. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Pinch out surplus flowers: After three fruits have formed, pinch out others as they appear. Eventually, select the biggest one and remove the rest so the plant puts its energy into just one fruit. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Lift the fruit: raising your pumpkin off the ground onto a pallet or straw helps get the air underneath it, ripening the skin and avoiding rotting. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Hire that forklift truck! Once your pumpkin has mellowed to a rich orange in around October, it's time to harvest.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing giant vegetables in your garden.

Giant pumpkins

Planting a veg garden really kicks off the year. By the end of March you'll have bought new potatoes and onion sets from our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre and tucked them into their new homes, and with a bit of luck you'll be getting out those seed packets you chose from our extensive range of fruit and veg to sow the first hardy crops like carrots, peas, cabbages and beetroot.
But what happens when that first flush of productivity is over? Once you've harvested those new potatoes it's still only June, there's half the growing year left but you've got bare patches opening up all over the place.
Planting for a continuous harvest throughout the year is one of the holy grails of veg gardening. With a little planning and some tricks of the trade you too can avoid boom and bust, evening out your harvest so there's always something to pick somewhere on the plot. Here's how:
<ul>
<li>Successional sowing: Fast-growing veg like baby-leaf salads and carrots are ready within weeks, so repeat sow just half a row at a time every month through the season to keep them coming. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Intercropping: use every inch of space by sowing quick-growing carrots, spinach or beetroot among slower-growing brassicas: that way while they're growing, you get an extra harvest from the same space. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Plug plants: in our garden centre you'll find a huge range of young vegetable plants, ideal for dropping into gaps opened up by harvesting lettuces, cabbages or leeks for a near-instant second harvest. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Sow different varieties: many types of veg, like carrots, calabrese and sprouts, have early, mid-season and late varieties: sow all three and they'll mature at different rates, extending your harvesting time. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Remember winter: you won't feel like sowing crops for winter while it's still spring, but if you don't your harvest will stop dead in October. Plant purple-sprouting broccoli, winter cabbage, leeks and parsnips in March to keep the veg garden pumping out the harvest through the chill.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about keeping a continuous harvest from your vegetable garden throughout the year.

Keeping up the harvest

When you're happily beavering away in the veg garden over summer in %locations%, it can seem like the long days of abundant flowers and fruit will never end. But one day, inevitably, you cut the last pumpkin and pull up the bean plants and it is, undeniably, winter.
There's no need to stop enjoying your plot just because the weather has turned cold, though. Embrace winter as part of your veg-growing year and you'll find your patch can be as productive from November to February as it is for the rest of the year.
You'll need to begin planning in early spring, as these are plants which need a long time in the ground. Start by choosing some of the great winter veg we offer as seeds or plug plants in our garden centre: here's our pick of the best.
<ul>
<li>Parsnips: sow fresh seed direct into the ground: the sweet, pale roots taste better after being kissed by frost. 
Recommended varieties: 'Tender and True', 'Gladiator'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Cabbages: super-hardy savoys have fabulous flavour and texture: follow with crunchy spring cabbages for an April treat. 
Recommended varieties: 'January King', 'Duncan' (spring cabbage). 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Brussels sprouts: plant early, mid-season and late varieties to pick fat sprouts from September to February. 
Recommended varieties: 'Trafalgar', 'Rubine'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Celeriac: knobbly roots with the fine flavour of celery but much easier to grow: keeps well, too. 
Recommended varieties: 'Prinz', 'Monarch'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Kale: if you want an easy-to-grow cabbage substitute, pick young kale leaves for a taste sensation. 
Recommended varieties: 'Dwarf Green Curled', 'Cavolo Nero'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Winter salads: sow spicy winter baby-leaf mixes under cloches, or pick from the new range of Japanese salads. 
Recommended varieties: Mizuna, Mustard 'Red Frills'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Chard: sow in September and you'll be picking spinach-like chard all winter. Protect with cloches in bad weather. 
Recommended varieties: 'Rhubarb', 'Swiss Chard'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Leeks: ramrod straight leeks are as hardy as anything: plant seedlings deeply for long white shanks. 
Recommended varieties: 'Musselburgh', 'Bleu de Solaise'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Rhubarb: force clumps of big, beefy rhubarb for tender pink stems from February onwards. 
Recommended varieties: 'Timperley Early', 'Victoria'.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre &nbsp;in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing winter vegetables.

Winter vegetables

When you're starting out with your new veg garden and trying to decide what to grow first, the sheer variety of vegetables that opens up to you when you grow your own can be bewildering. You'll find so many different types in our garden centre in %locations%, from artichokes to zucchini, not to mention the mouthwatering selection of varieties of each, that it's hard to know where to begin.
But there are some veg you shouldn't be without: the tried-and- tested, easy-to-grow kitchen essentials. Plant these first, and you won't go far wrong.
Potatoes 
Grow your own spuds, and you'll transform your opinion of this 'humble' vegetable forever. Try deliciously-flavoured heritage varieties, or savour melt-in-the-mouth new potatoes within minutes of harvest.&nbsp;Recommended varieties: 'Duke of York', 'Mayan Gold', 'Sarpo Mira'
Peas 
If your idea of a pea comes from the freezer, fresh peas are a revelation. Sow on windowsills for microgreens, enjoy young pods as mangetout, and sprinkle curly shoot tips in salads. Or just enjoy the mature peas. It's up to you.&nbsp;Recommended varieties: 'Douce de Provence', Mangetout 'Shiraz', 'Ambassador'
French climbing beans 
The connoisseur's alternative to runner beans, tailor your French climbing beans according to taste. Choose from slender pencil beans, flat-podded types, purple or yellow varieties, or shelling beans for white haricots.&nbsp;Recommended varieties: 'Cobra', 'Blauhilde', 'Blue Lake'
Garlic 
Breaking a fat head of garlic into cloves to plant in chilly November starts your gardening year with a smile.&nbsp;As well as dried cloves, try green scapes (flower spikes) and mild-flavoured green garlic.&nbsp;Recommended varieties: 'Chesnok Red', 'Solent Wight', Elephant Garlic
Chard 
Generous crops of leafy greens, with a side order of crisp midrib, chard is just like spinach but miles easier to grow. It comes in a rainbow of differently-coloured stems - sometimes on the same plant.&nbsp;Recommended varieties: Swiss chard, Ruby chard, Chard 'Bright Lights'
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about five easy veg.

Five easy veg

Sometimes in veg-growing, as in life, the golden oldies are the best.
Older 'heritage' veg varieties aren't often found in the shops, as they aren't uniformly shaped, sometimes don't store or travel well, and are difficult to harvest mechanically. That means the only way to enjoy their sumptuous flavours, colours and textures is if you grow your own.
Here are five of the best old-style veg to look out for in your favourite garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;and try in your own garden: we promise you won't be disappointed.
<ul>
<li>Runner bean 'Painted Lady' has been grown since at least the 1850s. It's prized for its bicoloured red and white blooms, pretty enough to be grown in the ornamental garden. The flowers are followed by a heavy crop of delicious long, flattened green beans.</li>
<li>Broad bean 'Crimson Flowered' was rescued from extinction in 1978 thanks to an elderly gardener from Kent. The rest is history: its gorgeous deep red flowers are now seen, and admired, in gardens all over the country.</li>
<li>Kale 'Cavolo Nero', also known as Black Tuscan kale, came to our shores in 1860 on board Thomas Cook's ship. It was originally grown as an ornamental for its extraordinary long, puckered black foliage, but we know different: pick the full-flavoured leaves young and cook like cabbage.</li>
<li>Tomato 'Marmande' is a sumptuously flavoured beefsteak variety from France, making huge fist-sized fruits. They're lumpy and bumpy, and prone to splitting - but it's worth it for one taste of that superb, rich flavour, the perfect balance of sweet and sharp.</li>
<li>Squash 'Turks Turban' was brought to the UK from America in 1869 and gets its name from its extraordinary shape – a doughnut-like lower layer with a 'hat' on top. It's orange, but striped cream and green: like nothing you've ever grown before (it has a great flavour, too!)</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about a taste of history.

A taste of history

Most vegetables are raised from seed, making them fantastic value – for the price of a single lettuce bought in the shops, you can buy a packet of seed to grow 1000. That's reason enough to grow your own: but you'll find sowing seed is also hugely satisfying as the first tiny sprouts appear, with their promise of bumper crops to come.
Growing from seed is straightforward but there are a few things to remember as you crack open that first packet and get sowing in %locations%. Here are our top tips for seed-sowing success:
<ul>
<li>Use good-quality seed compost: you'll find sterilised (so disease-free) and finely-textured John Innes formula seed composts in our garden centre.</li>
<li>Prepare seedbeds well if you're sowing direct outside: remove weeds and large stones and rake soil thoroughly so it's the texture of breadcrumbs.</li>
<li>Don't sow too thickly: overcrowded seedlings are more prone to fungal disease and struggle to compete for water and nutrients, so space seed well apart.</li>
<li>Sow at the right depth: as a rule, bury seeds to twice their diameter – for small seeds, that's a light sprinkling of compost.</li>
<li>Follow the instructions on the seed packet: they're mines of information, with handy tips and guidance on spacing, sowing depth and germination temperatures.</li>
<li>Cover pots and trays after sowing so the seeds never dry out: clear polythene secured with an elastic band or a clear propagator cover does nicely.</li>
<li>Water drills before sowing: if the weather is dry, really drench the drill before you sow, so seeds are sitting on damp soil from the start.</li>
<li>Wait till it's warm enough as seeds have specific temperature ranges within which they germinate. Most need at least 10°C though carrots and lettuce come up a little cooler, at 7°C</li>
<li>Use tap water for seedlings under cover, as saved rainwater often carries water-borne fungal diseases.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about tips for sowing vegetables.

Top tips for sowing vegetables

When you're just starting out, full of enthusiasm and keen to get going, it can seem an age to wait before you pick the first fruits of all your hard work. And it's true that some crops, like purple-sprouting broccoli or parsnips, can take all year to mature to harvesting stage – mind you, it's well worth the wait. Have fantastic crops in&nbsp;%locations%.&nbsp;
Luckily there are loads of fantastic quick-crop vegetables to grow and eat while the slowcoaches are getting going, so sow these and you'll have plenty to harvest in the meantime. This is fast food with flavour, freshly-harvested produce which arrives on your table within as little as a fortnight after sowing.
<ul>
<li>Beetroot: young beetroot leaves have beautiful colouring and a richly earthy flavour just like the roots. Pick them from about four weeks after sowing, then after eight weeks pull the tender baby roots at golfball size.&nbsp;Fastest-growing varieties: 'Kestrel', 'Red Hawk'</li>
<li>Radish: The quickest results on the plot, with seedlings showing in days and perfect, spherical roots in three weeks. Pick young and re-sow half a row every few weeks for a constant supply.&nbsp;Fastest-growing varieties: 'Cherry Belle', 'French Breakfast'.</li>
<li>Rocket: The name gives it away – scatter seeds and you'll have peppery baby leaves for your plate within a fortnight. Sow when it's cool or it'll bolt (mind you, the flowers taste lovely, too).&nbsp;Fastest-growing varieties: 'Sky Rocket', 'Voyager'.</li>
<li>Spinach: Treat spinach as baby leaves for salads and you can harvest them within around three weeks from sowing. They last ages – you can expect to pick over each plant five or six times.&nbsp;Fastest-growing varieties: 'Galaxy', 'Nagano'.</li>
<li>Turnips: The best-kept secret on the veg patch, turnips give you a double harvest. Pick leafy green tops from three weeks after sowing, or pull the delicately-flavoured roots at golfball size at just five weeks old.&nbsp;Fastest-growing varieties: 'Tokyo Cross', 'Snowball'.</li>
</ul>
​Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about speedy veg.

Speedy veg

​One of the real skills of good vegetable growing is the ability to time the cycle of sowing, growing and harvesting so you always have a steady stream of goodies to pick fresh from your garden in %locations%.
It takes good planning and a few canny tricks to make sure you always have just the right amount to pick, ready when you want it, every month of the year. Here are our top tips to help you keep the crops coming.
<ul>
<li>Sow often: sow everything at once and you'll have loads to pick in a few weeks' time – but once you've finished, your veg-growing year is over.</li>
<li>You can sow seed successfully from March until July, so make the most of it and stagger your sowings, putting in a new batch every three to four weeks right across the season. That way you always have some crops ready to pick, some growing on and some just sown, and you'll extend your harvest right into autumn.</li>
<li>Don't sow too much: sow a whole row of lettuces, and they'll all be ready at the same time – and that's a lot of lettuce. Plant six lettuces every three weeks, though, and you'll have two lettuces to eat every week for as long as you want them, as your next crop is ready just as you finish eating the first.</li>
<li>And there's no rule that says you have to sow a whole row, either: half a row of carrots, beetroot or salad leaves, sown direct every three or four weeks, gives you a much more manageable quantity.</li>
<li>Sow different varieties: many vegetables come in early, mid-season and late varieties, meaning they mature at different rates. That's a gift for you when you're trying to spread your harvest over a long time. Early carrots like 'Nantes 2', for example, crop in about eight weeks. Plant one row of these plus one row of a maincrop variety like 'Autumn King' – ready in 10 weeks – and you'll be picking carrots for an extra fortnight. The same technique works for potatoes, beetroot, potatoes, calabrese and sprouts.</li>
<li>Grow long-cropping vegetables: choose your veg types carefully, making the most of veg which give you pickings over a long period.</li>
<li>Cut-and-come-again lettuces, like 'Salad Bowl', are invaluable: you pick them leaf by leaf and they just keep giving for months on end. Calabrese, too, is a great long-cropping vegetable: once you've cut the main central head, the stem keeps producing smaller sideshoots giving you a second and third harvest.</li>
<li>Use your spare spots: when a spot comes free in the garden, plant it up right away. Plug plants are ideal for this: either grow your own or buy them ready-to-plant from your favourite garden centre.</li>
<li>You can make the most of the space underneath larger, slower-growing plants like big, hefty Brussels sprouts, too. Sow a row of baby-leaf salads between your newly-planted sprouts plants and you can pick and eat them long before the Brussels get big, doubling the harvest from the same space.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about keep the crops coming.

Keeping the crops coming

You may be short of outdoor space, but that doesn't mean you have to do without home-grown vegetables. There are lots of veg which do brilliantly in containers, whether windowboxes, grow bags, pretty terracotta pots or just tin cans nailed to a fence.
Growing in containers has many advantages: perfect soil, easy planting and your crops are kept well out of reach of slugs. These days, there are lots of innovative new ideas around to help you get started: look out for wall-hung vertical planters, automatic watering systems and even special varieties of veg bred for growing in pots, all available from your favourite garden centre in %locations%.
There's a huge range of veg you can try in containers, from herbs and salad leaves to tomatoes, chard, beetroot and even climbing French beans trained up against a wall. Just follow our five golden rules for a summer of plenty from your patio.
1.Use the largest containers you can 
The more room veg roots have, the happier they'll be (you can pack more veg in to larger pots, too!) So always buy the biggest containers you have room for.
2.Water, water, water 
Plants in pots are completely reliant on you for water supplies. Water container-grown veg every day – twice a day in hot spells.
3.Feed, feed, feed 
After the first six to eight weeks compost runs out of nutrients, so add weekly liquid feeds to your watering routine.
4.Re-sow fast-growing crops every month 
Keep picking continuously by sowing new containers of fast-growing salads, herbs, and quick crops like beetroot and turnips once a month.
5.Choose the right varieties 
Look for the words 'container veg' or 'patio veg' on seed packets: special varieties like Courgette 'Patio Star' and Aubergine 'Ophelia' will crop brilliantly in pots.&nbsp;
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about a container vegetable garden.

A container vegetable garden

Canny vegetable gardeners start thinking about what to grow next winter as soon as the last one is finished. Take time out from the spring rush to think about what you'll grow in the coldest months of the year and you'll reap the rewards in fat cabbages, nutty Brussels sprouts and kale when there's little else around to pick.
The range of veg you can enjoy in winter is extraordinary, and from late spring onwards you'll find a huge variety on sale as plug plants and seeds in your favourite garden centre. Look out for delicacies like long-cropping 'Dwarf Green Curled' kale, burgundy 'Rubine' sprouts, pretty red 'Rhubarb' chard or knobbly gourmet root vegetable Celeriac 'Prinz'.
Winter veg plants often take a long time to grow, so get winter brassicas, leeks, parsnips, swede and celeriac in the ground from late spring. Faster growing chard, winter spinach and salads can wait till August: sow to follow on from potatoes or onions to keep your veg garden productive year-round.
A time-honoured way of keeping slow-growing brassicas out of the way while you enjoy earlier crops is a nursery bed. This is a separate area – often a raised bed or cold frame – for sowing rows of brassicas direct. Thin seedlings as they grow, then in June dig them up and transplant into beds just vacated by early broad beans, peas or lettuces.
If you haven't room for a nursery bed, you can still grow early crops in between generously-spaced brassicas like Brussels sprouts plants, usually sown around 60cm apart. While they're still small, use the space between the seedlings for an extra crop of carrots, salads, spinach or beetroot. The faster crop will be out of the ground well before the brassicas are big enough to overshadow them, giving you twice the crop from the same amount of space.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about planning a winter vegetable garden.

Planning the Winter Vegetable Garden

Growing your own food is one of life's great pleasures, and like most good things, it's worth doing well. A great way of measuring your progress is to pit yourself against the old-timers - producers of football-sized onions and metre-long carrots.
It takes courage to exhibit your produce, but it's a lot of fun. Once you take the plunge and enter your first show, you'll be warmly welcomed in, with lots of advice and if you're lucky, hints on how to grow bigger and better next year.
Your local gardening club in %locations%&nbsp;is likely to hold annual competitions, and many allotment sites have much-anticipated shows for plot holders, too. Or try your hand at the amateur growers' competition at the RHS Malvern Autumn Show, now including the National Giant Vegetable Championships.
So here are a few tips to help kick off your glittering career as a champion veg-grower.
Choose the right variety: For competition veg, it's all in the genes. You'll find plenty of veg seeds with a big reputation in your favourite garden centre: try 'Ailsa Craig' onions, or 'St Valery' carrots.
Start early: Champion growers traditionally sow their onion seeds on Boxing Day – giving them the maximum possible time to swell into those ginormous bulbs.
Use crowbars: Not to sabotage the competition, but to make long, deep holes where you're going to grow your giant parsnips or carrots. Fill with compost and sow on top for super-straight roots.
Grow in containers: The legendary Medwyn Williams, winner of multiple Chelsea gold medals, grew all his parsnips in drainpipes. Use a sandy compost mix and just tip out at competition time.
Feed, feed, feed: Whether it's giant pumpkins, marrows or runner beans, all that growth requires a lot of fuel. Plenty of manure before you start, plus regular liquid feeds pump up the volume to the max.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing for show.

Growing for show

Short of space in your %locations%&nbsp;garden? Then this is the technique for you. All you need is a single raised bed to enjoy a wide variety of fruit and veg all year round. Here's how:
Build your raised bed:&nbsp;a raised bed:&nbsp;1.2m x 1.2m gives you 16 squares – and with one type of veg in each, that's quite a range of home-grown produce to pick. Ready-made raised beds, available from your favourite garden centre, click together in moments for instant results.
Find the right spot:&nbsp;choose your sunniest corner for your square-foot veg garden. Place it on bare soil, or turf: you can even put your raised bed on concrete, though drill drainage holes to let excess water run off.
Fill your bed with compost:&nbsp;a 50:50 mix of multipurpose compost and a soil-based mix like John Innes no. 3 is ideal for growing veg: you'll find both in your favourite garden centre. Fill the bed level with the top and then firm down gently.
Mark out the squares:&nbsp;you can do this with string attached to nails in the sides of your raised bed, or by tying together a grid of canes. Either way, your squares should measure 30cm x 30cm each.
Plant your veg:&nbsp;sow one type of veg into each square, at slightly closer spacings. One square foot holds four 'Cos' type lettuces; a tomato plant; 16 leeks; four dwarf French beans or 16 carrots. Taller plants grow better at the back; smaller ones get more light at the front.
Keep the harvest coming:&nbsp;as soon as you harvest from one of your squares, replace the crop with fresh plug plants bought ready-grown from your favourite garden centre, or raised from seed. You should be&nbsp;picking a dazzling array of veg from your square-foot garden from early summer through till spring.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about a square foot vegetable garden.

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Seed Potatoes, Onion Sets & Garlic

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Veg for containers

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Seed Potatoes, Onion Sets & Garlic

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Veg for containers

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Plants!