VEGETABLE SEEDS Aubergines Beans - French Beans - Runner Beetroot Broad Beans Broccoli & Rapini Brussels Sprouts Cabbage Cauliflower Carrots Celery, & Celeriac Chilli Peppers Courgettes & Summer Squash Cucumbers, Gherkins & suchlike things Fennel Flowers Grains Herbs Kale Kohl Rabi Leaf Greens for Cooking Leeks Lettuces Melons & Watermelons Mustard Greens ( for cooking) Onions - spring sowing Onions - overwintering Onions - special types Oriental Greens for cooking & salads Parsnips Peas Pumpkins & Winter Squash Radishes (salad, & cooking types) Root Parsley Salad Vegetables Sweet Corn Swedes Sweet Peppers Tomatoes : Bush Types Tomatoes : Vines - Cherries Tomatoes : Vines - Larger Tomatoes : New Centiflor types Tomatilloes & Groundcherries Turnips Unusual Tubers: Oca & Yacon

~ Seed for HERBS ~

Herbs can be some of the most rewarding plants to grow, with even a few plants providing flavouring for many different meals, as well as filling the garden with scent and colour. Many of the herbs we offer can be grown very successfully in containers if you have limited garden space or want to cheer up a patio or balcony.

~ (i) BASILS ~

Finissimo Basil
The smallest-leaved basil there is. Finissimo forms a neat round bush which is ideal for growing in a pot. The leaves are tiny (1/2 cm), but have a lovely strong basil scent and flavour. One of Kate's favourites - perfect for growing on a windowsill so that it's always to hand when you're cooking.

Tiny, strong-scented bushes.

Order HeFB - 400 seed £1.74

Note: several people have pointed out that this has a slightly more aniseed-tinted flavour than other basils. We like it! But we also now have a different sweet basil as well - see below.

Green, huge leaves.

Order HeMB - 400 seed £1.74

Green, medium-sized leaves.

Order HeGB - 400 seed £1.74

Green, lemon-scented basil medium-sized leaves.

Order HeLB - 400 seed SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY PRICE £0.89

TEMPORARILY SOLD OUT

~ (ii) OTHER HERBS ~

Give outdoor parsley some protection with a cloche or sow a late crop in a polytunnel for fresh leaves right through the winter.
Coriander can also be sown undercover in late summer for harvesting in autumn & winter.

Chinese Chives (a.k.a. Garlic Chives)
Chinese chives are an easily grown herb, very useful in the kitchen. Their clumps of distinctive flat leaves have rounded tips and a mild garlic flavour, hence their other common name of Garlic Chives.

We particularly like them snipped into an omelette. They actually make an underground rhizome and come back year after year, so once you have a clump established you have them forever.

Order OnCC - (lots of seeds) £1.73

Melissa (Lemon Balm)  
Its name ‘Melissa’ comes from the Greek for ‘honeybee’, and it is a useful bee plant, attracting pollinators to your garden. But that is not all - related to mint, Lemon Balm has a very nice lemon-minty flavour, & is used similarly - it makes a very pleasant herbal tea, which is sweet and calming, and also in fruit dishes (as well as flavouring ice-cream if you’re getting really fancy).

Pretty easy: Sow the seeds on the surface of the soil in trays or pots in spring, pressing them in gently. Don't start too early as the baby plants don’t like frosty weather. Once they have germinated, pot them up, harden them off and plant them out. Once established, they are make a robust perennial bush, and you can pick the leaves as they are required. If the plants get a bit tired and tatty-looking, you can cut them back to encourage a new flush of growth.

Makes a sweet & calming tea

Order HeML - 2g lots of seed!) £1.32

'Frise Vert Fonce' Parsley
This is a nice tightly curled green parsley from France, bred to have good long stalks that hold the leaves clear of the soil, so less mud to wash off when it rains. Parsley will grow well either in a pot or in the ground. We always have a clump on the go in the greenhouse which will generally overwinter in all but the coldest years, and another in the garden over the summer, so it is just to hand when cooking.

It has a good strong parsley taste - try a 'pesto' sauce made by blending lots of this parsley, cashew nuts or almonds, garlic, olive oil and a splash of vinegar plus a little warm water if needed to help it blend. Delicious!

An essential herb for the kitchen . Tightly curled.

Order HeFV - 2g (lots of seed!) £1.52

'Gigante di Napoli' Parsley
This is a large flat-leaved parsley from Naples, ideal for cooked dishes and for those of you who prefer this type. Really huge dark green leaves & a good flavour.

Order HeGN - 2g (lots of seed!) £1.52

Coriander - leaf selection (Coriandrum sativum)
This is another herb we always, always grow so that it is fresh to hand when cooking. It is really easy to grow and we sow short rows regularly throughout the season in the greenhouse or garden. It takes up very little space for the large amount of pleasure it adds to our meals.

If you want to grow coriander for the fresh leaves (rather than for seed), it is important to grow a variety selected for this purpose - like this special strain which is very slow to flower, and produces nice bushy plants. Keep well watered and pick very frequently to maximise production, and make two or three sowings at monthly intervals to make sure you always have fresh leaves to pick.

Coriander grows well outdoors from late spring through into summer. You can extend the season by sowing under fleece or (ideally) in a polytunnel in early spring or in autumn and then you can have fresh coriander almost all year round.

Slow to bolt, for fresh leaves

Order HeLC - 120 seed £1.91

'Amsterdam Cutting' Celery

It is an easily grown and very useful garden herb, as you can just cut a few leaves when cooking.
This is a special Dutch strain chosen for dark leaves and a particularly rich flavour.

Order CeAC - lots and lots of seed, (at least 400) SPECIAL PRICE £0.99

'Quillquiña' (Porophyllum ruderale)
With a citrus spicy scent and flavour, this is used in South America to make delicious salsa, & can also be used anywhere you would use fresh coriander.

The plants have pointy leaves with an attractive blue-green colour & grow eventually to around waist high. Particularly good with bean dishes and potato cakes.

3' Tall. Spicy-citrus flavour.

Order HeQU - 40 seed £1.50 - Seed produced for us by Anne Bartlett

'Papalo' (Porophyllum coloratum)
Another amazing herb from South America, this quick-growing annual has a nice, intensely spicy-sharp scent, suitable for salsas, or an alternative to coriander.

Bright green plants with pretty round leaves grow 2' to 5' tall, and need a warm sunny spot. Ben's favourite, makes fantastic refried beans and chillies.

2' Tall. Nice spicy-lemony flavour.

Order HePA - 40 seed £1.38 Seed produced for us by Anne Bartlett

'Britton Perilla' NEW
Perilla (also known as Shiso) is an easily grown, handsome annual herb similar to Basil but without such a high heat requirement. The plant in the picture is outdoors in our garden in Wales.

It can a bit hard to germinate, but is easy to grow once sprouted, and we give you loads of seed. The trick you need to know is that light is needed for germination - so don't sow too deeply. Sow in small pots/trays under cover in late spring or early summer, just gently pressing seed into the compost without covering.

Either plant outside once the weather has warmed up, or pot on into a larger container. Site in full sun or greenhouse for the best scent.

A member of the mint family , this strain has leaves that are vivid green on top, and striking purple underneath. It has a “minty-fruity-basil” flavour. It has all sorts of uses. Put it in salads, or add to a dressing. Used as a garnish, the shredded leaves are put on rice, pasta and noodle dishes, or added to soups. Or whole leaves can be fried up with garlic and ginger as a side dish.

It is also very pretty in the garden, releasing its scent as you brush past it.

Order HeBP - 1g (lots of seeds) £0.99

'Dutch Mammoth' Dill NEW
Dill! Here we have a particularly large-growing strain from Holland.

Dill is very easy to grow, and we give you lots of seeds. Sow thinly direct into well prepared soil once the weather has warmed up in spring, and just keep the soil moist until plants are established. Dill grows up to 3’ tall, so allow a reasonable amount of space! It does tend to bolt (run to seed) relatively quickly, especially in hot dry weather, so sow short rows two or three times over the summer for a constant supply of leaves. Harvest the seed to use in cooking over the winter - and of course to sow next year!

The feathery leaves are used in all sorts of fish dishes and cucumber pickles, but also in soups, salads, stir-fry, omelettes, chicken and seafood dishes as well. The plants are very pretty when in flower. Our favourite uses for dill are for potato salad, and in mustard-dill mayonnaise.

Order HeDM - 1g (lots of seeds) £1.69

the seed is very pretty, too.

Saving Herb Seed:

It is different for each herb, but in general with the herbs, you get a lot of seed for not too much effort.

You need to grow only 1 variety of each herb (which is pretty normal anyways) to avoid crossing, and let it flower.

Let the seedheads dry on the plant, and then cut and hang in a cool dry, airy place until brittle.

Usually you rub or stomp out the seed (the rubber mat from your car is ideal for this!), and then pass it through a sieve to get rid of the big bits of stalk etc.

The pictures show basil seed being done by Ben.
Basil seed is easy because although it looks as it will fall out when ripe,
it doesn't, so you can leave it to get really brown and dry without worry.