Marieke De Jong

https://www.growildnursery.co.uk/. Just emailed a newsletter to say their seedlist is mostly full again with fresh seeds.
Not sure if they are already on Steve's list, but it seemed worth a mention since they have special seeds and limited stocks.

M.

What a list Steve, thank you!

These are maybe not technically companies, but you can get some interesting seed from them (and send some back when you save seeds!)

https://seedsaving.network/

A work in progress, at least the website. When they're open in the spring it works fine. I've saved some seed for them this year.

https://www.incredibleseedlibrary.com/

I've not used this one myself, I only discovered them when the season was in full swing and they were sold out of most of the things that would interest me.

That's disappointing! Sorry Nancy, I thought I was bringing good news 😏

We have a clump of those in the garden, I didn't know they were edible! Thanks Steve

I'm happy to send you some of the dahlia seeds if you like? So far I've harvested from the three earliest plants.

Send your address in a Moosage if you want some and I'll pop them in the post.

When we moved to the highlands (57°55 north) I brough quite a few plants. (The movers were polite enough to just smile) One of them was my partner C's dahlia. His mother grows them in The Netherlands and he loves them. On arrival I plonked in the ground, and it lingered for two years or so and then vanished.

Now my mother-in-law is a dear lady who insists on giving me birthday and Sinterklaas (Dutch st. Nick) gifts. But only 'good' gifts, so not always what I would want 😂 Since I also already have everything, this is a problem of sorts. So every year I rack my brain to find something that will be useful, and that will be approved by the queeny of gifts.
After reading in one of James Wong's books (homegrown revolution?🤔) that dahlia bulbs are edible .. well you can probably guess.

A few weeks before my birthday I received a parcel containing 40 dahlia bulbs 🤣 about thirty more than I was expectinging. She doesn't do half jobs, my mother in law. So there was some frantic finding of crates and dry compost. Somehow I managed to get all of them in pots/the ground in spring.

They were a lot later than the ones in NL, but some were quite early and bloomed for months.

There are 2 Lilac time. Huge, huge flowers. Late and the insects can't get at the pollen/nectar because of the flower's structure. Pretty, but why would I grow something the pollinators can't eat?? C pointed out that they would be good for textile dye, since they've huge and I won't feel bad about picking them 🐝 so, maybe I'll find them a corner. Maybe.

2 bishop of Llandaff. Late. Very striking. The first flower broke off, so I doubt it will produce seed this year, but hey, they might.

30 bee friendly mix. This is where the magic lives. They're awesome. They are open, some with a double origami-looking ruff of petals. Lovely shades, short and tall. And popular with pollinators. Bumblebees overnight on them, even hiding between the leaves of the doubles, then continue eating as the sun hits.(it's hilarious)
I'm leaving the tubers in the ground (lazy badger is me) and saving seed from the earliest flowers to see if I can't landrace them into being Scottish.

Anyone done this to dahlias by any chance? Advice, stories and tips are very welcome!

Thanks for the reminder, their email is sliding into the to-do archive as I read.. (lethal place, things get lost in there for years! 😱)
I'll find some pennies to invest. Won't be much, but I'd really like for them to succeed.

Nancy Reading wrote:I put in just a little - I can't get ethical dairy here - lucky to get organic really. It would be super if they had a nationwide reach!

We get cheese delivered from The Ethical Dairy sometimes (can I post links to external shops?), they're in Dumfries.
They've really upped their prices since the crises, but they do deliver to us last time I checked, so they might also deliver to Skye?
The new highland courier seems to be having trouble, we just had a pet food order cancelled because of it. So maybe wait until that mess is sorted out.

Ahhhh... Got distracted by the landrace thread link 🤓 tagged for reading during the long winter evenings.

I'll send you some of my home saved Raatviksaart and Bijou mangetout peas. Originally from RealSeeds, grown side by side here in the Kyle of Sutherland for 5 years now. No mixing of their own volition yet, but I gather there's some manual action I could undertake, haven't gotten round to looking up what.
They're great peas as they are though too. The rosakrone looks... Enviable! Yes, I want it. I've been trying to grow beans, and skimped on the pea varieties because they'd hog the space. But maybe I should just admit that phaseolus vulgaris is not made for Scotland (yet!!) and give the peas a bit more leuve.

I've spastically tried to keep my broad beans separate for all this time 🤣🤣 Feels very silly now that I've realized that landrace is a thing (thé thing?). So not mixed, but a miraculous crimson flowered survivor of several years of hardship and voles. I'll sow it with sutton dwarf and my field bean survivors and hope for beautiful love babies. Short, pink, early and tasty. Although the field beans were a bit slow, so the early may have to become a separate project at some point...

Not home bred, basically because the packet was so huge I kept putting it off, but 2 types of runner beans from Franchi in Italy. The whites were a bit sceptical, but did ok. The red ones were quite resilient to our windy site and did really well.
We have interesting soil that dries out really quickly, but the atmosphere/air is quite damp and rarely very sunny.

I've discovered a patch of what must be self-sown parsnips in a difficult corner of the garden. Sown at least two years ago and given up on as an utter failure. But now there's new parsnips coming up there 🤔 it'll need some work, but promising for next year's seed.

Back soon!

xM

Lydia Cox wrote:

Hello! Thank you, I am glad that you have felt inspired to post! What is the book that you have been reading that was so inspiring?

Sorry, unintentional teaser! It's by Joseph Lofthouse - Landrace Gardening: Food Security through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination. Delightful!

Now let's see if this quote worked

xM

O wow! And yes please to all of those!!
(The cat is making funny face, wondering why I'm bouncing around the room )

We're east coast, technically. Funny corner fold in the land, it's called Culrain. So, not as much rain as you get most likely... but damp enough to technically be rainforest at the back of the garden.

I was really hoping to start with carrots and parsnips coming season, swedes were on the list for next year but if you have some to spare then I'll lovingly grow a bed this coming year. (The only ones that ever wanted to grow for me were RealSeeds Gilfeathers turnip swede)

I did see the going to seed forum mentioned, I'll join it asap. The far north seed swap sounds amazing and like just the place. I'll keep an eye out for the flea market, and I'll send you a message for those seeds 😍

Hello Ac,

Is the polytunnel project for your friend going well?

We moved to a property in the North of Scotland that came with a large polytunnel. 3.5 meter by 9 meter? Something like that.
I tried to make it work for 5 years without great pleasure or succes. 2 months or so I cut the top off and so far I'm much happier with my nunnel (non-poly tunnel) than I ever was with the tunnel. My cabbages have no mildew for the first autumn ever.

Now most people seem very happy with their tunnels, so there must be something in it. For me it wasn't worth the effort of watering, airing and the continually trapped insects and animals.

The inspiration to cut it came from the Shetlandish plantie crubs, that are basically surrounding walls to keep the worst of the wind off. You can put over netting if you were so inclined. (I'll try to ad pics)
For me, some conjunction of plastic tension and gravity have allowed me to keep a poly sheet up on the wind side for now, the other side is garden netting I had. In spring I'll add another layer and grow peas and runner beans up the side.

Probably not in the same order:

For airing/positioning I would try to catch the prevailing wind on the head side so you can install 2 doors and have them open so the wind can blow through most of the time. Netting bottom sections seem to be a trend too, I'd definitely want those in a tunnel.

Watering is a major, major job. And that's when everything is working. Repairs and unforseen circumstances must be exponentially harder when disabled, so this would be a major concern for me. A passive watering system with no moving parts sounds a solution, so a seep bed would definitely be high on the list.
Gravity and tunnel placement could work really well on this if you can get a flow to/through the tunnel somehow.

Animals get trapped, even with two doors open at all times. Birds and rodents can usually figure it out, but insects just try to keep flying to the light. People tell me they'll get out at night if i don't catch-and-release, but even then I can't see how a day locked in a hot dry tunnel is good..
Opening top panels like in a geodesic dome may be a solution. Or no top

Poly tunnels are relatively expensive and the plastic will need replacing regularly. More cost and such a pain to do, even with 4 non-disabled adults. And don't forget your plastic will need cleaning. Our big tunnel was too big and even with a ladder my very tall partner couldn't reach the top outside to get it properly cleaned. And just a bit of grime throws a lot of shade
Raised cold frames may do a similar job for a fraction of the price and upkeep. If placed well and raised I can imagine these as very wheelchair friendly.

Planning your crops to suit the circumstances really helps. I got Covid at the height of the growing season a few years back and was out of gardening for nearly two months. What a mess my annual beds were. Now I grow perennials whenever I can.
We grow portuguese longer-lived kale/cabbage. I'm not sure how long they live, but even if not fully perennial they'll last a lot longer than annuals. The leaves you want to pick will grow higher, so no bending required. They didn't like the tunnel, but outside they thrive. So less planting, easy harvesting.

Our garden is shady, but my neighbour is getting elderly so he offered me use of his sunny glass house. Smallish, but walk in. So I grew 8 tomato plants in there. And sure I could have watered a bit more and gotten a better harvest, but even for a potentially double harvest of what I got, it was A LOT of watering.
Will I grow tomatoes again? Yes, because delicious. But I'll find a way to make them self-sufficient, or at least self watering.
Will I tell people to also grow tomatoes? Not without warning that it is a lot of work if you do it under cover

So, if I were you I'd start by building your friend a few big raised cold frames and a few raised beds near his house. And get a passive water source going.

I hope you do well and do send us pictures when finished!