Toothsome cucumbers with beautiful deep-green, shiny skin. 'Mideast Peace' has a everything you want in a cucumber - sweet flavour, crunchy texture and it keeps well. Its one of the most robust cucumber varieties we've grown. The plant photos in this description were taken in October! As with all Lebanese-type cucumbers, the fruit are stouter than a standard supermarket cuc - they max out at 15cm. A true dual purpose variety - harvest thumb-sized for pickles or to palm-sized for Shirazi salads all summer long.The vines grow from 1-1.5m and can be trained on strings or left to sprawl although the cucumbers are better quality when trained. Mideast Peace was bred by Dr. Alan Kapuler of Peace Seeds (Corvallis, Oregon) for cool climates and we've found this variety to be both early and prolific in unpredictable British summers.Sow: April on a sunny windowsill or heated propagator at 21C.Plant: Harden off and plant into unheated greenhouse/polytunnel after risk of frost has passed. Usually ready to transplant 4 weeks after sowing. Plant at 60cm spacing, train up strings or leave to sprawl.Harvest: As baby cucs for pickles or for salads.Kitchen: Pickle or eat raw. Pairs with citrus (lemon, lime), aromatics and spices (dill, fennel, coriander, ginger, chilli, black pepper), alliums (spring onion, garlic, garlic chives), fats (sesame, cashew).Notes: Plants can be trained up strings or left to sprawl (and will take up a lot of room!).
~20 seeds
92% Nov 24
A productive salad leaf and stalwart cut flower rolled into one. Wrinkle Cress grows quickly and abundantly, adding pep to your salads from autumn through to spring. As the days lengthen, plants throw up shoots full of tiny white flowers which gradually transforming into graceful seed heads. The seed heads can be picked when glaucous green or when dry and silvery. They are super versatile - an easy way to add texture to late summer and autumn arrangements. Use fresh or dried.
Sow: mid March-May & Aug-Sept (undercover or outside)
Plant: direct sow or plant 10-20cm apart
Harvest: Salad leaves 4-8 weeks after sowing. Cut seed heads when the uppermost flowers have faded.
Kitchen: Eat fresh in winter and early spring salads. Pairs with citrus (orange, lemon, lime), aromatics and spices (coriander, ginger, five spice, chilli), alliums (spring onion, garlic), fats (sesame, cashew).
Vase: Expect fresh seed heads to last for a week.
~1g / 400 seeds
Germ 93% Nov 24
Marys Niagra is strictly suited to gardeners with a sweet tooth who welcome a little wildness into their gardens. Also known as cape gooseberries, these berries are all individually wrapped in a papery husk. The orange berries inside taste like the layer of caramelized pineapple you get on a pineapple upside down cake. Totally delicious.Despite having their roots in North America, these grow with wild abandon - the plants are big and the fruits are plentiful. They grow 30cm up and then start to bush outwards to almost 3 foot wide! We think they would look tremendous cascading down the side of a container. Fruits fall off the plant when ripe. You can give them a little shake to encourage them and leave to ripen fully on a window sill. Fruits keep well.Sow: March-April with heat (21-25C)Plant: 50-100cm apartHarvest: July-SeptemberKitchen: Eat straight off the plant or incorporate into fruity desserts - they're particularly good in pavlovaNotes: This variety grows well outside.
~20 seeds
Germ 96% Nov 24
Brit Pop is our solution to a very British problem - the late summer runner bean glut. Those few weeks in August when you have runner beans growing out of your ears and your neighbours, fellow allotmenteers and in-laws are trying to sneak their excess runners into your doorstep. Brit Pop is a beautifully diverse mix of varieties which all flower and pod up at slightly different times - giving you an extended harvest, without a massive glut. Each year we allow the plants to freely pollinate and set seed, keeping our Brit Pop population diverse. And if that's not a good enough reason to buy them, just look at the seeds themselves - a stunning mix of purples, pinks, blacks, blues, whites and browns - no two are the same!These are very rare seeds which we have a limited supply of. There is nothing similar on offer in the UK and we continue to bulk these up year-on-year.Sow: May in pots or modulesPlant: 1-2 weeks after sowing, 30cm apart.Harvest: July-SeptemberKitchen: Steam or sautee. Pairs well with alliums (garlic, onions, shallots), citrus (lemon), fruity (tomato), salty (feta, olives, capers), fats (ricotta, butter, bacon, almonds), aromatics (paprika, cumin, parsley, chilli), Notes: Protect emerging seeds from rodents. Plants need a strudy structure to climb up. Plants will have different flower colours - red, white and bicoloured - maybe some apricot shades if you're very lucky.~15 seeds
Germ 80% Nov 24
An unusual rocket variety with deep green, broad leaves which aren't lobed like standard rocket varieties. It is slower growing and slower to bolt than more vigorous alternatives such as 'Victoria'. A substantial, peppery leaf for salads harvested between autumn and spring.Sow: mid March-May & Aug-Sept (undercover or outside)Plant: densely for baby leaves, 20cm for salad leavesHarvest: 4-8 weeks after sowingKitchen: Eat fresh or just wilted. Pairs with citrus (lemon, balsamic vinegar), aromatics (basil, dill, mint) and spices (chilli), salty (capers, olives, feta), fats (blue cheese, goats cheese, pine nuts).Notes: Early sowings benefit from fleece.
Also available in our 'Cool Greens' winter salad seed collection. Download our Winter Salads Growing Guide to learn more about growing winter greens.~0.5g/250 seedsRocAst-00145-WNO-CGerm 92% Jul 25
An early and prolific member of the habanero family of chillis which has a distinctively lemony and aromatic. Its flavour rivals the more widely available 'Lemon Drop' and we include this in our catalogue because of its earliness, bountiful yields and small stature. Its perfect for container growing and doesn't need to be staked.This is a chilli we grow for one reason only - to make an unforgettable fermented chilli sauce. The chillis are on the spicy side so we often cut them half and half with sweet peppers. This variety dries well but disappointingly doesn't retain its bright lemon-yellow colour after drying, although it does keep its flavour.Sow: Valentines day to end March, with heat (25C)Harvest: July-SeptemberKitchen: Pairs with savoury (olives, bacon, cured pork), aromatic (parsley, coriander, oregano, ginger), spicy (paprika, cumin, cinnamon), fats (avocado, soft cheese, eggs).Notes: Grow in greenhouse or similar.
~20 seedsChilLem-00140-WNO-CGerm 88% Nov 25
Often the best things in life are found in unlikely places. Who would have guessed that earliest and most productive pepper would hail from the warm Middle Eastern gardens of Turkey? Not us. But Turkish Dolma produces bountiful harvests of sweet, palm-sized peppers from July to September. The peppers are blocky with shiny skins which turn from green to red.Turkish Dolma has been bred to be picked green and stuffed ('dolma' is Turkish for 'stuffed) then baked. We find them very versatile peppers in the kitchen. Roast the young fruits whole and eat them seeds and all; fry them up for breakfast menemen (Turkish scrambled eggs) or let them ripen fully for the perfect snack pepper.Sow: Valentines day to end March, with heat (25C)Harvest: July-SeptemberKitchen: Pairs with savoury (olives, bacon, cured pork), aromatic (parsley, coriander, oregano, ginger), spicy (paprika, cumin, cinnamon), fats (avocado, soft cheese, eggs).Notes: Grow in greenhouse or similar. Stake plants using a tripod method - they don't get very tall but branches are liable to snap under the weight of their fruit.
~ 20 seedsPepTDma-00135-WNO-C
Germ: 85% Nov 24
