Seeds and  Plants in Detail

We've collected at least 60 packets of vegetable and flower seeds so far. Well they only cost a quid or so at a time and all that potential is just irresistible when you're wandering round the garden centre looking for dream fodder. 

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Seeds and Plants
 

Then there's those free packets of seeds on the front of gardening magazines. Anyway the garden plant  list below is not exhaustive as many seed packets have already made their way to France. It will be amended from time to time though as we will cull it down to those seeds we actually plant and let you know how they turn out and what we did with them. Look out for the hyper-links changing they lead to detail on specific garden plants and seeds.

 

	Seed List
Type	Description	Variety	From
Beetroot	White		The Real Seed Catalogue
Broccoli	Quick Heading		The Real Seed Catalogue
Broccoli	Early Purple		The Real Seed Catalogue
Brussels Sprout	Cold Hardy	Sanda	The Real Seed Catalogue
Brussels Sprout	Early to mid F1 hybrid	Topline	Thompson & Morgan
Carrot	Large Half-Long	d'Eysines	The Real Seed Catalogue
Chilli Pepper	Purple Red Orange	Bolivian Rainbow	The Real Seed Catalogue
Chilli Pepper	hot mix red yellow orange	Heatwave	Thompson & Morgan
Chilli Pepper	habernero and scotch bonnet	Tropical Heat	Thompson & Morgan
Cucumber	Early Stripy	Wautoma	The Real Seed Catalogue
French Bean	Climbing Yellow	Or du Rhinn	The Real Seed Catalogue
French Bean	Dwarf Green	Aquilon	The Real Seed Catalogue
Land Cress	Salad Plant	Barbarea verna	The Real Seed Catalogue
Leek	Early Season Yellow	Jaune de Poitou	The Real Seed Catalogue
Leek	Late	Bleu de Solaise	The Real Seed Catalogue
Lettuce	red & green	mixed	Mr. Fothergills
Mizuna			Johnsons
Pak Choi	White	Prize Choi	The Real Seed Catalogue
Pea	Climbing	Serpette Guilloteau	The Real Seed Catalogue
Radish		Buonissimo	The Real Seed Catalogue
Radish		French Breakfast	Mr. Fothergills
Salad Mix	Orach Mountain Spinach German Spinach		The Real Seed Catalogue
Salad Mix	Pak Choi Mizuna Mibuna Rocket red Mustard	Oriental	Thompson & Morgan
Spinach	spring summer spinach	Lorelay	The Real Seed Catalogue
Sweet Pepper	Wax Pepper	Antohi Romanian	The Real Seed Catalogue
Sweet Pepper	F1 hybrid	Golden Bell	Thompson & Morgan
Tomato	Fat red ribbed vine	Costoluto Florentino	The Real Seed Catalogue
Tomato	Maincrop red bush tomato	Gigante Liscio	The Real Seed Catalogue
Tomato		Gardeners Delight	Mr. Fothergills
Grains
Type	Description	Variety	From
Amaranth	Early flowering	Grain Amaranth	The Real Seed Catalogue
Oats	Naked	Terra Hulless	The Real Seed Catalogue
Spelt Wheat	White	Espelta Aristada	The Real Seed Catalogue
Sweetcorn		Ashworth	The Real Seed Catalogue
Sweetcorn	popping corn	Strawberry popcorn	Thompson & Morgan
Herbs
Type	Description	Variety	From
Basil	Purple Spicy	Arrat	The Real Seed Catalogue
Basil	Sweet Green		Unwins
Basil		Sweet Genovese	Mr. Fothergills
Chives	Fine Leaved		Unwins
Coriander	Fine Leaved		Unwins
Fennel			Thompson & Morgan
Oregano		Greek	Johnsons
Parsley	Plain Leaved		Unwins
Perilla	Red	Akajiso	The Real Seed Catalogue
Rocket	Mild	Cultivated	The Real Seed Catalogue
Rocket		Cultivated	Mr. Fothergills
Sorrel	Early hardy	Leaf	The Real Seed Catalogue
Fruit
Type	Description	Variety	From
Huckleberry	garden not the bush	solanum melanocerasum	Unwins
Melon	Cantaloupe	Collective Farm Woman	The Real Seed Catalogue
Melon		Ananas d'Amerique a Chair Verte	The Real Seed Catalogue
Rhubarb		Glaskin's Perpetual	Thompson & Morgan
Watermelon	Early Red Fleshed	Blacktail Mountain	The Real Seed Catalogue
Groundcherry		Giant Guatemalan	The Real Seed Catalogue

This is more detailed information on our experience with individual varieties of fruit and vegetable plants. Whether the seeds or plants grew well, what kind of harvest we got and most importantly how it tasted.

Salad Mix Oriental

These seeds were planted under cloches at the end of March. They took quite a while to appear initially but three short rows about a foot each have been giving us salad leaves now for a couple of weeks. How different too from the salad leaves bought in plastic bags from the supermarket! The intense and varied flavours have been a real surprise to a couple who are not fans of leafy green salads.

A second sowing of salad seeds in late April has sprung into life much more quickly and we will continue to sow a little row here and there throughout the Summer.

Carrot d'Eyesines

Not surprisingly since we got ahead of ourselves and bought the carrot seed two years before we moved here this has not germinated well although we will get a sparse row of carrots out of it. It has not been helped by our lack of experience which meant we did not keep the soil moist after planting the seed.

The few that we did get did not really have a good flavour you certainly could not eat the thinnings as they were pretty tasteless.

Chilli Peppers

As at May 2007 not one pepper has germinated! This has to say more about us than the plants. Ah well better look next year.

Cucumber Wautoma

This germinated really well, probably benefiting from a later, hence warmer sowing. I have planted out the six best seedlings (May 2007).

These have produced and produced the cucumbers are probably at their best in salads at about six inches long. This makes them ideal for two people to share for a meal so you are always getting really fresh cucumber. The smell is intense.

French Beans Or du Rhin

Most beans germinated, not knowing how many beans we would want I have planted out eight seedlings in our climbing pea and bean bed. May 2007 they are doing really well vigorous healthy plants climbing rapidly up the poles.

We have had plenty of beans from them but they are a very pale yellow not what I expected. They did start producing just as the Aquillon were nearing the end so they have made a good combination

French Bean Aquilon

Again these did really well. I read in the organic gardening book that beans deter colorado beetle so there are a dozen plants in the bed between the potato beds.

They have been hugely productive probably space wise more so than the climbing beans it's no wonder all our French neighbours seem to have bushes rather than climbing beans

Climbing Pea Serpette Guilloteau

Another good germinator. We planted out nine and gave half a dozen plants away. The peas have the ladders you see in the picture. Early on the leaves were yellowing this seemed to be from some sort of deficiency in the soil or maybe in common with everything else a lack of water. Anyway we lost one but the rest seem to be doing OK with an application of organic fertilizer.

I don't think we planted enough we ate many in the garden so few made it as far as the kitchen they were delicious

Collective Farm Woman Melon

These germinated really well and we got sturdy little plants unfortunately a wet spell in May led to a slug explosion and they paid the price.

Amaranth

We have sown the seeds (late May) in pots. The seedlings appeared within a couple of days. We'll be taking better care of these little plants to ensure the slugs don't interfere with our homebrewing plans.

August 2007 They didn't do well starting off in pots in fact they made very little progress once they were a few inches high possibly due to lack of care we have so much going on at the moment. However we planted some directly into the soil where we had had the potatoes and these are growing away well now.

Oats

These are in the bed that was earmarked for kidney beans so far (May 2007) they have started to appear above the surface within about four days of planting.

Kidney Beans

A no show. Either they rotted in the ground or got eaten anyway they have been replaced by oats.

Ashworth Sweetcorn

These germinated really well and are growing away in their bed at the bottom of the garden. Now about 2 feet high (May 2007).

Due to the poor weather many of the cobs did not fill out but the chickens enjoyed them. The few that we got were enjoyable but not the best sweet corn I have ever tasted I don't know if this was due to the weather or the variety

Strawberry Popcorn

Another lot that germinated really well. So many in the packet that three of us were able to share them. I've placed them in a bed in front of the sweetcorn. This might not be a good idea if they are ready for pollinating at the same time but I'm risking it due to lack of ready beds this year.

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Gardening France 2008