Wealden Times | WT167 | January 2016 | Health & Beauty supplement inside
Wealden Times - The lifestyle magazine for the Weald
Wealden Times - The lifestyle magazine for the Weald
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
FreeImages.com/Michal Pietrzyk<br />
Seeds of success<br />
Jo Arnell shares her excitement for seed catalogues<br />
Hark! Is that the merry thud of the Christmas post,<br />
or rather, the post-Christmas post landing on the<br />
mat? The arrival of the seed catalogues is - for sad<br />
old me anyway - part of the magic of the season. It might<br />
be dire and dismal outside, but <strong>inside</strong> their glossy pages it’s<br />
already high summer and looking gorgeous. The fact that<br />
these are just pictures and ideas of what could appear after<br />
laborious sowing, growing and nurturing is, right now, in the<br />
depths of winter, a side issue. I’m ashamed to say that even<br />
before the turkey’s cold I’m ready to settle down in front of<br />
the fire with a pile of them and start my spring dreaming.<br />
flavour and for the un-buyable taste of home-grown and<br />
freshly harvested. The heirloom, or heritage, tag is banded<br />
about in much the same way as ‘vintage’ and ‘retro’ are<br />
used in fashion and interiors, but to be a proper heirloom<br />
variety, the seed needs to be at least 70 years old and ‘open<br />
pollinated’. This means that it will reliably come true from<br />
collected seed each year so, in theory at least, you need<br />
only buy once. Heirloom vegetables are renowned for their<br />
flavour, rather than supermarket uniformity. If you want an<br />
‘uber’ crop (think of all those lovely straight rows standing <br />
Seed sowing trends for <strong>2016</strong><br />
The gardening world turns fairly slowly, so many of last<br />
year’s trends are still in our minds for this year, but the<br />
seed catalogues are a good place to look for up-and-coming<br />
ideas, especially for new plants and new colour schemes. The<br />
pastel colours of a few years ago are becoming a bit deeper,<br />
more muted; I’m enjoying the coppery tones, faded dusky<br />
pinks and the ‘antique’ look, that’s popular at the moment.<br />
Heirloom varieties - There are also subtle changes on<br />
the grow-your-own front, and more people are growing<br />
heirloom vegetables. There’s a huge range of crops available<br />
now: everything from rainbow carrots and purple-pod peas<br />
to beetroot with a candy stripe. We’re also growing for<br />
135 www.wealdentimes.co.uk
Change language