REAL SEEDS – REAL TREATS
It’s been a glorious week for gardening, and feels as though spring is just a round the corner. As the days get warmer and longer, there is real incentive to indulge in a little evening ‘armchair gardening’ and have a good look through the seed catalogues. Or I suppose, for the modern or techy gardeners – the seed websites.
I love Real Seeds, a Welsh family company who, as their name suggests, sell only ‘Real, Open Pollinated Seed’; no hybrids & no GM seed, and they explain why: ‘Real seed breeds true, so you can save your own seed.’
Good old fashioned gardening tactics!
The company was started by Kate & Ben about 20 years ago. Kate has grown vegetables from childhood, and Ben studied as a plant scientist, which comes in handy for the more complicated breeding projects. They are also quick to sing the praises of the other people who help the company run smoothly, Cathy, Tam and Ian. More good old fashioned values.
They have a great selection of traditional veg seeds as well as some more unusual and rare tubers to try. This year I’ll be tying the Yacon and the Cinnamon Vine.
Yacon is a large plant from South America, distantly related to sunflowers, and it has huge, attractive fuzzy green leaves. so it’ll help keep the weeds at bay too. It also has very pretty little yellow flowers at the top of each stalk. The plants are very easy to grow and seem to thrive in almost any soil or climate, which is a bonus for Welsh gardens.
At the end of the season you dig it all up and the sweet, crunchy tubers are the bit you eat – you divide and replant the knobbly growing tips, so you don’t need to buy new - and once peeled, can be used raw in salads, or in stir-fries as a substitute for water-chestnut.
Andy’s Cinnamon Vine is an unusual edible, apparently grown more for amusement rather than as a staple part of your diet. The thing that attracted me to this is the promise of the incredible cinnamon scent given off by hundreds of small white flowers. What’s not to love?
The plants make two types of tuber – a huge underground one that is impossible to dig up, and small ‘air-tubers’ attached to the stem at the base of each leaf. It requires very little maintenance with the top growth dying back in winter and re-sprouting in spring.
Plants take three to four years to reach full maturity and the big edible root can then be up to three feet long, going down vertically, which is why most gardeners grow them in deep tubs. That way you can make sure they are grown where the scented flowers can be most appreciated too. ■■For more information and friendly advice visit www.realseeds.co.uk