'GROWING YOUR OWN.....
Vegetables
Herbs
Salads
Fruit
January and February are really the planning months, especially when the ground is frozen and covered with snow! You must just leave your soil alone until it thaws out completely! CHOOSING WHAT TO GROW THIS YEAR....
Only grow what you like to use and eat! You will never have enough space to grow evry crop you fancy trying so we would encourage you to grow small quantities of things you really enjoy cooing and eating.
We have three leaflets that make a good starting point for your choices...
Potager to Plate 1 and 2 These two leaflets take you through the calendar suggesting our choice of crops to start each month, and our favourite if you are only go to try one. For each 
month we offer three or four recipes for crops that you could be harvesting from your patch that month.
Tuscan Potager to Plate This is our latest Potager leaflet and explores CROP ROTATION looking at the Pea & Bean Family, the Cabbage Family, Potatoes, Root Crops, Salad Crops, Protected Crops, Herbs and Fruit. Again there are recipes for each family but there is a Tuscan spin on this leaflet! We use the wonderful Franchi Seeds of Italy and the recipes have the Tuscan emphasis of using seasonal fresh produce from your garden and cooking it very simply and easily.
*** WHAT DO DO IN JANUARY & FEBRUARY***
1. Choose your seeds. Including Onion Sets, Shallots, Garlic and Seed Potatoes. Don't forget to pick up our FREE Potager to Plate leaflets at the garden centre and see our diary of events for the evening masterclass on 'Growing in the Tuscan Potager' on Thursday 11th March.
2. Start chitting your potatoes in trays in a cool but frostfree light place.
3. Decide where you are going to grow your crops and explore raised beds and large containers.
4. Start preparing soil when it thaws out, filling raised beds and warming up the soil with polythene covers.
5. Fix a timetable of when you will start crops growing. Remember you can start crops off indoors, in the heated greenhouse or propagator, but you must have warm protected spce to grow them on. If you haven't got space delay starting them off... nature will always catch up when conditions are good for growth!
6. Come and explore our tempting collection of crops, tools and soil improvers and then relax in the Orangery tearoom over a bowl of freshly made wholesome soup!
