Heritage Varieties

Kale 'Red Ruble' is a red, Russian-type kale that has been specially bred for the salad leaf market. Its beautiful wine-red serrated foliage makes a quick growing colourful tasty salad leaf. Grown year-round on a windowsill and picked young and small, they can be added to lettuces to make your own mesclun mix.

With deeply cut, slate green oak-like leaves ‘Red Russian’ is one of the tenderest and sweetest kales available. Sow under cover in autumn for baby leaves after four to six weeks, or directly outdoors for over-wintering. This hardy crop can provide nutritious leaves even in the depths of winter.

'Dwarf Green Curled' is a compact, hardy and easy to grow kale. It produces an abundance of tender and delicate, densely curled green leaves which can be harvested throughout the winter months. Kale is one of the least problematic crops, it will tolerate conditions that would make most brassicas keel over!

Kale 'Black Magic' is an improved Italian Black Kale, bred to be more tender with better flavour. The winter hardy plants more cold tolerant, vigorous and slower-to-bolt than other Italian kales. They form an easy-to-harvest rosette of very dark, savoyed leaves with a flavour that is rich and mild.

Until recently Cavolo Nero, or 'Tuscan Kale', was one of Italy's best kept secrets. Simply adored, especially in the north of Italy, it has been an essential fare of traditional dishes for centuries. Cavolo Nero can now be found in garden markets, specialist greengrocers and trendy restaurants throughout Europe.

Beet ‘Bulls Blood’ is a magnificent old dual purpose variety Today it is used by commercial growers for both baby leaf and mixed salad leaves. Harvest at any stage of growth, use the leaves for baby leaf, in mixed salads or use steamed like spinach, or the roots can be left to grow like any other beetroot.

Leek Musselburgh is named for a coastal market town on the Firth of Forth. Introduced in 1834, it has remained popular ever since. It is extremely hardy and can be picked over winter from December to April when there is little else in the garden. A very hardy leek and a very dependable performer.

As its name suggests, this classic butterhead lettuce can be the basis of fresh daily salads throughout the year. This is no 'supermarket' variety, but rather a proper lettuce with an exquisite flavour unavailable from anywhere but from your own vegetable patch.

Nothing can beat this variety as a consistent producer of good-sized, crisp, round heads. Lettuce 'Great Lakes' is heat and cold tolerant and has a strong resistance to bolting and tip burn. It produces large, glistening, well-rounded heads, well-folded and fine-flavoured leaves with a crisp texture.

Icebergs are one of the most popular lettuces in the world. There is little comparison however, between a shop bought Iceberg, and a home grown one. Both retain that beautiful thick crispness of leaf, but it is the flavour of the home grown makes it exceptional. Fresh, crisp and ever so slightly sweet.

This French butter-head lettuce is famous for its signature butter-head shape boasting the appearance of a bibb-type rosette with an array of beautiful colours ranging in bronze, gold, red and green. The “Four Seasons” will thrive in a range of climates and its texture always remains crisp and its taste unforgettable.