Garden And Gardener

Everything for the Gardener and their Garden

Archive for May, 2011

New products at Suttons Seeds

Saturday, May 7th, 2011

Suttons Seeds just added these new items

Essential Vegetable Starter Pack

Essential Vegetable Starter Pack £44.98
The Best Vegetable Growing Kit EVER – plus FREE plants and seeds!All you need to be able to cook fresh and tasty vegetables all summer. Perfect for anyone with a few m² and a small selection of containers.119 veg plants + 3 packs of easy-to-grow seeds + 60 FREE essential summer flowers – 1 kit delivered in 1 box, at just the right time for planting. Contains:10 potato tubers, approximately 45 onion sets, 18 beetroot plants, 18 mixed lettuce plants, 18 perpetual spinach plants, 3 tomato plants, 2 courgette plants, 2 sweet red pepper plants, 2 chilli pepper plants and 1 cucumber plant.Plus our easiest to grow seeds: 1 packet of Runner Bean Moonlight – a new self-fertile variety to ensure you get a bumper crop! Packets of easy-to-grow Primed Carrot and Parsnip seeds – the priming process bring the seeds to the very point of germination, so that as soon as they’re sown they’ll burst into growth with increased vigour!PLUS: 60 Flower Plants – fill your beds, borders and containers with a riot of colour this summer. Contains 3 of our most popular varieties: 20 Geranium, 20 Begonia & 20 Petunia.Varieties will be individually labelled. Culture: Full growing instructions included.. . . . . .

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New products at Crocus

Saturday, May 7th, 2011

New lines added today at Crocus

The Barn Garden Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith

The Barn Garden Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith £18.50
The Barn Garden is charming memoir, written about the creation of a garden that has been formed with the help of Tom’s parents, his family and friends. If nothing else it should encourage its readers to document their own progress with their gardens, and make their own scrapbooks – however modest the endeavour. Apart from being a wonderful documentary record of the garden, the book contains fabulous photographs the garden in all seasons by Andrew Lawson and Marianne Majerus, and the text gives a fascinating insight into Tom’s ideas about design and the way he combines plants.Its an easy and inspiring read, written by a designer at the top of his game. All the profits from the book go to charity.

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Things you find in the garden when you dig

Saturday, May 7th, 2011

dug upSomeone on our allotment site has found two clay pipe bowls. We’ve found an assortment of money and some pottery. Of course there’s the bits of wood, melted wheely bins, rusty nails, broken bottles and beer tins as well as plastic drinks bottles.
We’ve also found some pretty bits of china and a hallmarked spoon (Photo to follow)
It is like digging for treasure!

What’s the best thing you’ve found on your allotment or in your garden?

New products at PondKeeper

Friday, May 6th, 2011

PondKeeper has this new product today

Price reductions at Garden Buildings Direct

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Garden Buildings Direct reduced the price on these lines today

BillyOh 20M Overlap Shed 10 x 6 Windowless Economy

BillyOh 20M Overlap Shed 10 x 6 Windowless Economy was £257.90 now £253.90
10′ x 6′ Rustic Economy Overlap Shed from the new BillyOh garden sheds range – Designed to be easier to assemble thanks to the smaller panel, this is a quality shed which is perfect for garden storage.

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New products at Dobies

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Dobies just added these new lines

Vegetable Beginners Collection plus Free Seeds Pack of 119 Veg Plants + FREE SEEDS

Vegetable Beginners Collection plus Free Seeds Pack of 119 Veg Plants + FREE SEEDS £19.95
The Best Vegetable Growing Collection EVER – ONLY £19.95 plus FREE SEEDS!Our Vegetable Beginners Collection has everything you need to get your veg garden up and running.We have put together useful quantities of our most popular garden vegetables so you get lots of variety without buying more than you need to plant in your garden or on your patio.You will receive the following:Potato Tubers x 10Onion Sets x 45 approximatelyBeetroot Plug Plants x 18Mixed Lettuce Plug Plants x 18Perpetual Spinach Plug Plants x 18Tomato Pot Ready Plants x 3Courgette Pot Ready Plants x 2Sweet Red Pepper Pot Ready Plants x 2Chilli Pepper Pot Ready Plants x 2Cucumber Pot Ready Plant x 1Plus our easiest to grow packets of seed:Runner Bean Moonlight x 1Primed Carrot x 1Primed Parsnip x 1(The priming process brings the seeds to the point of germination, so as soon as they’re sown they’ll burst into growth with increased vigour.)119 veg plants + 3 packs of easy-to-grow seeds for ONLY £19.95! All delivered in 1 box at just the right time for planting…. PLUS Free easy to follow planner. Full growing instructions included.

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New products at Suttons Seeds

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Suttons Seeds has these new items today

Vegetable Beginners Collection plus Free Seeds

Vegetable Beginners Collection plus Free Seeds £19.99
The Best Vegetable Growing Collection EVER – ONLY £19.99 plus FREE SEEDS!Our Vegetable Beginners Collection has everything you need to get your veg garden up and running.We have put together useful quantities of our most popular garden vegetables so you get lots of variety without buying more than you need to plant in your garden or on your patio.You will receive the following:Potato Tubers x 10Onion Sets x 45 approximatelyBeetroot Plug Plants x 18Mixed Lettuce Plug Plants x 18Perpetual Spinach Plug Plants x 18Tomato Pot Ready Plants x 3Courgette Pot Ready Plants x 2Sweet Red Pepper Pot Ready Plants x 2Chilli Pepper Pot Ready Plants x 2Cucumber Pot Ready Plant x 1Plus our easiest to grow packets of seed:Runner Bean Moonlight x 1Primed Carrot x 1Primed Parsnip x 1(The priming process brings the seeds to the point of germination, so as soon as they’re sown they’ll burst into growth with increased vigour.)119 veg plants + 3 packs of easy-to-grow seeds for ONLY £19.99! All delivered in 1 box at just the right time for planting…. PLUS Free easy to follow planner. Culture: Full growing instructions included.. Pack of 119 Veg Plants + FREE SEEDS. . . . .

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New products at Crocus

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Crocus has these new items today

Telegraph Special Offer

Telegraph Special Offer £18.50
The Barn Garden is charming memoir, written about the creation of a garden that has been formed with the help of Tom’s Please order early to avoid disapiontment Tom Stuart-Smith has signed a limited number of his books.

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New plot

Friday, May 6th, 2011

allotmentI’ve took on an allotment nearer my home. It’s never been used as allotments before so it’s a minefield of couch grass, broken bottles and rotting tins. Oh and clay. Lots and lots of clay.

It’s been hard work digging it. We have a rotavator but it’s like concrete on the surface of the soil so it needs turning over first and the big lumps of clay taking out.

We’ve had a good few weeks of dry weather so have been able to dig and dig as much as our energy would allow. It’s been so hot and sunny that I’ve already got a tan!

The soil isn’t particularly good but we’ve got a pile of horse manure to enrich it – and over the next few years it’ll slowly improve as we try out different ways of turning clay and glass into soil!

The space used to be a children’s playground back in the 60s and 70s but fell into disrepair and since then was abandonded by the council. The space isn’t overlooked and would not meet any of the new rules on locating play areas – so was destined to be waste land and space for yobs forever until someone got wind of a way of getting it turned into allotments at no cost to the council. The local councillor had been aware of the antisocial behaviour issues on this land for some time and the solution happened in a very short space of time from putting the idea forward to the work being done.

boat going pastThe land is against the canal on one side and this has now been secured to make the site safe. This means there’s a fantastic amount of wild life very close. In fact there’s a fox who hangs out on the field quietly sleeping in the sunshine and only glancing up occaisionally at the humans digging on his field.

On the canal are geese and ducks and the odd canal boat! The site is a real sun trap too! In recent days I’ve been stood in the middle of my plot surrounded by bird song, with a fox a few meters away, us both basking in the amazing sunshine we’ve had this April.

Other plot holders are finding they actually have soil and one plot is completely turned over and planted. Why didn’t we pick that plot! However they don’t have the canal view we have!

We’ve been putting our weeds in a huge pile too and have added some grass cuttings in the middle of the pile to get it going.

We have found treasure as well as broken glass – £1.19 so far, and a hallmarked spoon!

We’ve been using a mantis cultivator on some of the first beds we’ve dug (after attacking them with a big rotavator that only starts when you threaten to take it to the tip) and we’re getting some finer tilth now that we are almost ready to plant in.

One the first bit we dug I threw some potatoes in and then topped it off with some muck! These are coming up now – but so are the weeds as this bit we didn’t thoroughly remove the weeds. It’s a reminder though to ensure that you do get as much root out as possible when preparing soil. Plus if we earth the potatoes up the weeds might die off a bit – that’s the theory and potatoes are supposed to be a good crop for putting in new soil.

Price reductions at Harrod Horticultural

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

Harrod Horticultural has cut the price of this product

Inflatable Greenhouse - Medium Inflatable Greenhouse - GRE-194

Inflatable Greenhouse – Medium Inflatable Greenhouse – GRE-194 was £345.00 now £295.00
Imagine how incredibly useful an Inflatable Greenhouse would be in the garden or on the patio; ideal for plant propagation and raising seedlings you could simply pump up the structure when required move it around your garden as desired and deflate and store during the summer! Amazing but true – the Inflatable Greenhouse offers you all the flexibility and growing freedom a permanent garden greenhouse does at a fraction of the cost and effort and you can change your mind with regards its location at any time. Ideal for use as an overflow growing area during busy times the base of this pump-up version (the powerful electric pump included will inflate it in roughly 10 minutes) can be unzipped to turn the structure into a walk-in cold frame or cloche – you’ll never want to let it down! The strength and quality of these structures can be gauged by the material used in construction – it’s the same UV resistant PVC film used in making white water rafts – and the greenhouse boasts a double layer adding to its already excellent insulation properties. There’s no chance of heat loss from the detachable floor either as six PU foam insulation sheets are inserted into the hard wearing nylon weave base and chunky heavy duty zippers around the base and door keep plants inside free from all drafts – a closeable vent helps regulate the temperature and humidity when required. The inflatable greenhouse is available in three handy sizes; Medium (150cm x 150cm x 170cm) Large (200cm x 200cm x 200cm) and the spacious Extra Large (200cm x 200cm x 300cm) to cater for all your garden needs and comes complete with electric pump and adaptors guy ropes plastic pegs repair kit and full instruction booklet – it’s the ultimate temporary greenhouse!