Carrots in Planters

The Potty Gardener

Last week, when I was busy preparing the greenhouse to be a suitable horticultural haven to kick start my potted garden, I had to evict some sitting tenants. Eggnog and Wotsit, my pesky hens, have been using the greenhouse as a conservatory over the winter and were most disconcerted to be sent packing back to their less luxurious day room, under the hedge. However, I will have to be on my guard (or just remember to shut the greenhouse door) as the cheeky chooks seem to be claiming squatter’s rights and proposing to sabotage my project.

 Sow easy! Preparing a bed to sow carrots would normally involve some muscle power, but all I had to do was fill my carrot planter (thoughtfully carrot coloured so I won’t forget what’s in it) with multi-purpose potting compost, then sow a few rows of seeds whilst quietly humming ‘Mary, Mary quite contrary..’ and imagining the neat little rows of bright green feathery carrot tops that would soon emerge filling me with simple satisfaction and wholesome happiness. Unfortunately when I turned my back to pick up my camera Eggnog and Wotsit silently tottered in and rearranged my sowing!

As far as I am concerned carrots and chickens go very well together…on a plate not in a planter!

I have managed to calm my feather induced fury by thinking about the next part of  my project... Sweet peas, who can ever feel anything but serene when thinking about their delicate scented ethereal blooms.. 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary....tummm te tummm.

Winter Plant Protection

Good morning Gardeners! Are you wrapping up to go outside today? Coat, scarf, gloves, woolly hat perhaps? Well, if so then spare a thought and a few pennies perhaps for your more vulnerable plants that might need something to keep the cold, damp and frostbite at bay. Wrap them up with a Haxnicks Easy Fleece Jacket, an Extra thick Fleece blanket or a Victorian Bell cloche. We often receive questions about looking after container grown plants in the winter (listen in Potty Gardener), one of the most common being cordyline palms. I would suggest gathering all the leaves together and holding them in an upright position with some string or soft-tie, but when it is really cold an Easy Fleece Jacket or even two should help to protect the foliage and stop the frost getting to the growing point of the palm. Do make sure to remove the jackets when the weather is warmer to avoid rotting.

The Royal Horticultural Society  offers some good advice on protecting plants during the winter months and unless I am very much mistaken it looks like they have opted to spend their pennies on a Haxnicks Victorian Bell Cloche.

Many plants bravely push on through the cold without any protection but one in particular never fails to give me a childlike surprise every year. Spotting the first modest blooms of snow drops in my garden always makes me smile, but if they are still hiding in your garden then why not wrap up and warm yourself inside and out by a visit to a snowdrop display in someone else's? The National garden Scheme has a list of snowdrop gardens open in aid of nursing and caring charities in February.

Grandpa Haxnicks

Seed potatoes and Spring cleaning

The Potty Gardener

There are some peculiar brown, wrinkly things lurking on my kitchen windowsill. They may be small and silent but rather alarmingly they seem to be growing poisonous eyes on stalks! Grandpa Haxnicks assures me that they can’t see me (I have my doubts), but I am relieved to know that in a few weeks I can safely bury them out of sight. If they continue to grow and possibly reproduce I am told that it is quite reasonable at some stage to dig them up, boil them alive and eat them (shhh maybe they have ears too).

These chitting seed potatoes, sporting the racy names of ‘Swift’, ‘Rocket’, and ‘Red duke of York’ promise to give a good summer crop and I’m told are ideal for growing in planters. Who gets to choose potato names I wonder, because if these little chitters don’t live up to their names I shall be offering to rename them (shhh maybe they have ears too)? If my potty ramblings haven’t satisfied your curiosity about growing potatoes in planters then have a look at  Haxnicks Potato Planters .

Anyway, as well as keeping a careful eye on those potato eyes I have gathered some pots, planters and grow bags ready to create my self-contained garden. Grandpa Haxnicks has kindly delivered some goodies and I have scrubbed up some old pots. I have also cleaned up and cleaned out the greenhouse and green it was, every pane coated in verdant mould, so I scrubbed the glass with a vinegar solution which apparently made me smell like an old gherkin. Lovely!

The next stage in my plan is carrots, Amsterdam Forcing Carrots to be precise. I also wonder who names the carrots? They sound even more imposing than the potatoes, why not something gentler like Nether Wallop Nudging or Trumpton Tender? Any more suggestions…..?

Grandpa Haxnicks says Make way for EasyPath

Good Morning Gardeners! February is a good time of year for you to take stock of what is in your sheds and greenhouses, to clear out the old and make way for the new. This is not a phrase that I am entirely comfortable with, but it leads me on nicely to giving you news of something new from Haxnicks. I am very pleased to tell you that Haxnicks EasyPath is poised to appear in garden centres any minute now.

 It is a fold-out pathway that goes between rows of vegetables, herbs, flowers or strawberries so that you can work between the crops without having to use planks of wood and, what’s more, because it is made of a tough outer weed barrier with a strong internal structure it keeps the weeds at bay and can also be used to protect wet lawns from wellies and wheelbarrow traffic.

It has a carry handle and loops along the edge to peg it down, and when you want to put it away it folds up neatly into a 30cmx30cm square.

Grandpas are entitled to a little boasting, so I’ll also tell you that Haxnicks EasyPath won the 2014 New Product Award at GLEE trade show in September. 

It will soon be available at a garden centre near you and with various online retailers, or you will be able to find it here on our website. There will be lots more exciting Haxnicks news to come and I will keep you in touch.

I hope you enjoyed hearing from our new friend The Potty Gardener earlier this week, I’m just off to visit her and give some advice on seed potatoes…a 'chit'-chat if you like!

Goodbye for now.

Grandpa Haxnicks

Growing without the Garden

Grandpa Haxnicks would like to introduce you to The Potty Gardener talking to anyone who will listen, mostly herself.... 

Hello from The Potty Gardener!

There is definitely an air of spring on its way this morning. No sign of a frost, some chirpy birdsong and a glimpse of sunshine. Of course, it won’t last but it is fuelling enthusiasm for my new project.

The kitchen table is strewn with gardening magazines awash with smiley, rosy cheeked experts inviting me to join in their plant-based passions. 'Sow', 'Create', 'Transform', 'Cultivate', 'Titivate', 'Rotavate', 'Motivate'!  Further fuelling of enthusiasm for my new project.

 So what is my new project, I hear you ask (or is that just the voices in my head?)? Well I'm quite happy talking to myself…potty, completely potty….and that is my new project. The potty garden. This year I am going to grow everything in pots, planters and bags. Why (voices in my head again)? Not because I am potty, but because I am living in a rented property where every inch of growing space is a knotted nightmare of ground elder roots. It invades the dry stone walls, penetrates the weed matting and is resistant to roundup. But it is possible to be motivated to sow, create, cultivate, titivate (maybe not rotavate) without the garden.

 I am making a plan that starts with potatoes in planters, but that ultimately helps me to get growing and glowing like they do in the magazines.  I want my pink cheeks to match the flowers in my garden like Carol Klein, to use my hands as spades like Monty Don and develop an organic grin as satisfied as Bob Flowerdew, so watch this space!

The Perfect Fit - by Garden Trade News

Find out how the recently signed deal between Haxnicks and The Tildernet group will impact on the Industry.

Potato Growing Competition - update 4

The weather has not been the best for growing vegetables so far this year and many of the UK’s gardeners are bemoaning a slow start, including some of the amateur gardeners here at Smart Solar taking part in our potato growing competition.

Progress is very varied according to reports from the team. Lindsey who had the luxury of starting hers off in a greenhouse is winning on growth so far, closely followed by Charlotte who has hers in a sheltered spot against a wall.

Lindsey's potatoes are out of the greenhouse now and doing well outside

The rest of the team are starting to talk to their plants in the vain attempt to encourage them to grow faster! Let’s hope some sunshine will do the trick.

Charlotte's plants in early June