Planning for Growth and Abundance, Beauty and Joy

Have you planned your garden for next year yet?!

Yesterday evening I spent hours online, and with pen and paper, scribbling down which seeds to buy and veggies to plant in the coming year.  With Christmas coming I thought I could create a Seeds from Santa list, so that 'Santa' (in all his friends and family forms) would not be stuck for what to buy me.

Then throughout the year, when I plant, grow and harvest my plants, I will think of all the people who gave me the seeds, and made such abundance possible - how lovely.  

Already I'm having fantasies about the beautiful rainbow-coloured harvests, bending in the breeze and basking in the summer sunshine.  Well, naturally I'm dreaming of sunshine.  It is October, very chilly, and currently pouring with rain. Too soon to put central heating on I think, so I'm wrapped cosily in a blanket, and drinking lots of hot tea and coffee (and a rather yummy butternut squash soup for lunch).

g g

My favourite place to buy seeds at the moment is online at Real Seeds.  A seasoned plot-holder recommended them, and he always seems to do brilliantly with his plot - winning many Best Plot awards.

I love that Real Seeds are a very small business (Ben Gabel & Kate McEvoy - and a few friends) who grow and harvest much of the seed they sell.  They also eat the produce grown from their own seeds, so they know their products very well.

At Real Seeds they encourage seed-saving and have instructions on how to do this.  Also, none of their seed is genetically tampered with and is totally without chemical treatments (phew.) Full details about the source of their Organic Seed is here: http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedsources.html

All the seeds I have bought from them so far have done brilliantly, and I'm looking forward to selecting and planting more.  I think you are guaranteed that you will be getting fresh, healthy seed every year.

They have some interesting rare, ancient or just unusual varieties - and that really appeals to me. I love the idea of growing veggies my ancestors grew over a hundred (or several hundred) years ago.

In addition to my usual favourites, this year I am also going to have a go with the following:

* Climbing 'French' Beans 

(text below copied direct from RealSeeds website)

'Cherokee Trail of Tears' Pole Bean 
 Simply the best bean there is. This bean was originally from the native North American Cherokee people.
In 1838 they were driven out of their homelands in the state of Georgia by the US government to make room for more European settlers , a forced march known as the 'Trail of Tears'. This bean is one of their heirlooms they managed to keep with them and has been passed on from generation to generation ever since.  Early Pole Snap/Dry. Tall, purple flowers, rounded green/ red pods. Black seed.

g g

image from Brummett Echohawk, The Trail of Tears, in the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

This is another pic I found online of the Trail of Tears bean:

* Lemon Basil 

(text below copied direct from RealSeeds website)

Lemon Basil NEW FOR 2012
Our latest basil has a strong lemon scent! Use it with salad dressing, fish, peas & some sweets, as well as making a nice tea.

Green, lemon-scented basil medium-sized leaves.

* Quillquina 

(text below copied direct from RealSeeds website)

'Quillquiña' (Porophyllum ruderale) 
With a citrus spicy scent and flavour, this is used in South America to make delicious salsa, & can also be used anywhere you would use fresh coriander. The plants have pointy leaves with an attractive blue-green colour & grow eventually to around waist high. 

Particularly good with bean dishes and potato cakes.    3' Tall. Spicy-citrus flavour.

* Yellow Mange-Tout 

(text below copied direct from RealSeeds website)

'Golden Sweet' Yellow-Podded Mange-tout pea

This is a beautiful yellow podded pea that is very sweet eaten fresh or cooked. A rare variety, so do keep your own seed if you like it.

We have grown many mange-tout peas (if you've not tried them, you eat the wide flat pods) over the years but this one has always stood out head and shoulders above the others. It is a superb mange-tout pea, with beautiful yellow pods, tall productive vines, and a delicious crisp flavour.

The flowers are purple, & the pods are a wonderful lemon yellow colour, so we actually grow it in our front garden as a decoration! The yellow pods easy to see for picking, and great both raw in salads, or cooked as a vegetable.

* Giant sugar-snap pea 

(text below copied direct from RealSeeds website)

Bijou' Giant Sugar Pea (HUGE edible-pods) 
This sort of pea - real old fashioned Giant Sugar Peas with 7 inch edible pods - used to be very popular but are now almost completely extinct.  The huge pods (the peas inside the pod in the photo are full-size) are sweet and juicy, the children just munch them straight off the plant.

Here it is then, after a 5 year project starting with a handful of peas found in a jar in a cellar, this is our own reintroduction of a proper Giant Sugar Pea as used to be grown in the 1880’s.

It matches the original description and engravings perfectly, even down to the pattern on the seeds and the number of seeds per gram.

We hope you enjoy it! You eat the whole pod raw or cooked. They're sweet and tender - & so huge that just a few pods are enough for salad or supper.

We've had really good feedback about Bijou since re-introducing it, with several people saying they would only grow this variety from now on.

Very rare, practically extinct. The pods are so big they're just silly.

g g

Well, that's just a taster of their seeds (it's 'Growing-with-my-garden-Claire back again by the way)!  

There are lots more on my unusual list, including: Giant basil and conversely, the Tiniest leaved basil; shiso herb; chinese/garlic chive; papalo herb; coriander (that's particularly good for 'Coriander Leaf' harvest, not Coriander gone-to-'Seed' harvest), mitzuna, mustard greens, and raab (which is a bit like a green sprouting broccoli).

All in all, I love the way the Real Seeds website and the details of their seed and veggies is written - in a very friendly, natural flowing style (natural, like their produce.) 

Maybe you might like to take a look for yourself?

 

By the way, I'm not an affiliate and have no vested interest in promoting RealSeeds, I just love them and what they do.  And as far as I know, they don't have (or need?) an affiliate programme.  I imagine they already get a lot of word-of-mouth recommendations - me for one.

So what's the Growing with My Garden Metaphor in this blog post?  

Well, I think it relates to the planning I am currently doing for the coming year, in all areas of my life, but including my business.  

However, I reckon you can sum up my Big Plans by saying that they contain:

1. Stuff I Love, and
2. Action relating to Stuff I Love.  

That should keep me busy ... and joyful in the coming year J

Happy growing!

g g

Nothing grows without time, energy - and LOVE

It is disheartening when something we have lovingly grown from seed, keels over and bites the dust, for seemingly no apparent reason. 

This is the year I was going to really make something of my allotment garden, and yet, this is the year I have felt disappointed.  So many of my crops have failed.

* Was I expecting too much?

* Was the weather to blame?   Too much sun, or too much rain?

* Did I plant the wrong crops?

* Did I put in insufficient time? With irregular or inconsistent checking on progress/pests/watering and feeding?

* Did I plant in enough quantity, or enough variety?

A combination of all of those, I think.

You can grow an abundant garden through trial and error, and by working with your intuition.  But it may take many years to really get the hang of it. 

However, with a good gardening manual, written by an expert, you'll fare much better.  With an experienced gardener to show you exactly what to do, you'll have an abundant garden faster and more easily.

Although you still have to give the plants time to grown and bear fruit.

This is also the year I was going to really make my business work.  But after an ecstatic and energetic start in February, we are now into September and I am very disappointed at my lack of progress.

So I recently invested in a marketing course that speaks to me, created by a seasoned guide who has trodden the path I want to tread.  She uses language that speaks to my soul, to my spiritual nature and offers practical tools that align with who I am.

I am following the course carefully, and slowly, step by step. 

As I follow her guidance, I have high hopes that this course, and my business will grow and bear fruit. 

I just need to keep at it, tending, nurturing and building my business. Regularly monitoring my progress. Creating new areas, and clearing away what hasn't worked - just like I'm doing with my allotment garden.

Growing my business, growing my garden and growing myself.  

By the way, the tomatoes are doing well!

Nothing grows without time, consistent focussed energy - and love.  Lesson learned.