Direct Sow In Spring

Beetroot 'Boston' is an excellent improved Boltardy selection. The round roots have a smooth skin and good internal colour and texture. Slow bolting, it is ideal for early sowings, this maincrop variety can be sown from early March right through to late August.

Detroit 2 Crimson Globe or Rote Ruben is a popular improved Detroit globe beetroot. It is a classic, main-crop beetroot which produces excellent quality, smooth skinned beets with strong skin and ox-blood flesh colour. It is recommended as a good cultivar to use for succession sowings.

“The old Egyptian turnip or flat-rooted beetroot has the best flavour but is scarce.” Bob Flowerdew. Beetroot 'Flat of Egypt’ is a very old heritage variety that produces smooth skinned roots, often heart-shaped, with a deep red, tender and flavoursome flesh.

Beetroot 'Boldor' is a superb, improved golden beetroot that offers superior seedling emergence, strong vigour and excellent uniformity. Attractive copper skinned, globe shaped roots with beautiful, sweet, juicy yellow flesh. Ideal for salads or for juicing. Sow March to July for harvesting June to December.

The herb borage is a well known annual. Not so well known is the equally beautiful form 'alba' which boast pure white, perfectly star-shaped flowers. Each flower is centred by five black stamens which heighten the drama. The flowers are edible, garden visitors can be converted to herbal advocates simply by offering a taste of its white flower.

The herb borage is a well known annual with beautiful blue flowers. Not so well known and not often written about is the equally beautiful form 'alba' which boast pure white, perfectly star-shaped flowers. This mixed pack of seeds gives both blue and white forms.

This lovely, old fashioned Broccoli variety is a very disease resistant, very hardy and very prolific producer of large dark green heads. Italian Green Sprouting Broccoli is very easy to grow and will produce a number of good-size side shoots once the initial head is harvested.

Kailan is a fantastic vegetable chimera - the florets of broccoli, the stems of asparagus, and leaves like tender collard greens. 'Kichi' is a uniform variety with large blue green waxy leaves and excellent stem and bud eating quality. It has a mild flavour and, best of all can be harvested in only eight weeks.

Flourishing famously in Mediterranean and Chinese cultures, elsewhere Raab is still a bit of a curiosity. Easy and fast growing, it can be useful as it comes ready when ordinary broccoli isn't available, but this isn't just a replacement for broccoli, it is a great vegetable in its own right.

Regarded as both a nutritious vegetable and curative medicinal, the Burdock root is widely used in all sorts of cuisines from the classic English summer drink to the classic Japanese 'Kinpira'. Seeds can be also sprouted like bean sprouts; nothing goes to waste with this plant.

Savoy cabbage ‘Vertus’ produces heads of finely blistered, dark green ruffled leaves that have a sweet, subtle flavour. This mid-late, frost hardy variety produces cabbages that have the ability to withstand even severe cold weather. Sow April to early June, harvest October to February.

Cabbage ‘Wirosa F1' is a very useful early variety of savoy Cabbage, with finely blistered leaves and a vigorous plant habit. Reliable and frost hardy, the cycle plantation to harvest is around 160 days. It can be sown early under glass for the earliest harvests.

Caraway is an incredibly useful plant. The seeds are used as a culinary spice and for medicinal purposes, the leaves can be eaten in salads and the roots cooked as a root vegetable. With feathery, delicate foliage the plant is lovely in the garden border and is a very useful companion plant in the vegetable garden.

Amomum subulatum the cardamon or cardamom plant is native to damp, forested valleys from the eastern Himalayas to central China. It won't yield enough pods for a bountiful crop of the spice, but makes an interesting conversation piece and a satisfying challenge for the adventurous gardener.

Carrot 'Purple Sun F1' is a conical, nantes-type carrot, with smooth, intensely coloured dark purple skin and purple centre. Slow bolting with strong disease resistance, they can be sown April to August. Pulled as a baby carrot, they are even more sweet and beautiful and dark to the core.