March

This highly esteemed ancient crop can be used raw in salads, sautéed as a side dish or cooked like spinach. Summer Purslane has a crispy texture you would expect from a succulent and an interesting nutty, peppery flavour. It is salty on the tongue.

Summer Purslane was highly esteemed and cultivated in Europe as far back as the Middle Ages, but is now cultivated only for specialised connoisseurs.This wonderfully succulent and cooling herb has tangy leaves make a very nice contrast, in texture as well as taste to other salad leaves.

Pumpkin 'Wee-Bee-Little' is an award winning little pumpkin that is very endearing. Remarkably miniature and averaging 8 to 9cm in diameter, they are delicious and decorative, they are the perfect size for children to grow and for small hands to hold. 12 weeks to harvest, each plant producing an average of 9 fruits per plant

Looking exactly like fairy tale pumpkins in children’s storybooks, Musquée de Provence is a gorgeous French pumpkin that is one of the only pumpkins that is eaten raw. Sweet with a light crunch and typical nutty taste, the very fine-grained flesh is considered by many to be superior to any other.

Rated the best miniature pumpkin ‘Munchkin’ has a bright tangerine-orange colour with deep sutures. Although it is tempting to grow them for their looks alone, they make fantastic eating. The pretty, small, abundant fruits have flesh that is reminiscent of sweet chestnut.

Jack O' Lantern is a traditional pumpkin, especially bred for carving out Jack O'Lanterns for Halloween. A long established favourite, with medium orange colour and sweet flavoured flesh it makes a superb carving pumpkin and a tasty cooking pumpkin.

If you have always wanted your very own pumpkin patch then Pumpkin F1 Mars is a great place to start. Bred to be a good performer even during difficult production seasons, An very early variety that produces uniform, 2 to 4kg dark orange fruits. Sweet and tasty and great for roasting or for Halloween carving.

Baby Boo is a charming, all-white, miniature pumpkin that is popularly used for table arrangements for Weddings, or for Halloween and for Xmas. Children love them because of their miniature size and they make wonderful Halloween 'Ghosts'!

Imagine, You’re reading the paper and suddenly your eye is drawn to a picture of this giant orange thing about the size of a truck with a guy half its size standing next to it grinning like a lunatic. “I’d like to grow one of those,” you think.

The Cape Gooseberry is a useful small crop for the home garden. The fruit is expensive to purchase as it is labour intensive in commercial plantings. Very easy to grow from seed, it can overwinter outdoors in mild areas or when grown in favoured positions such as the foot of a sunny wall.

Phacelia is a very attractive plant and one with a variety of uses. Very rich in both nectar and pollen, it is listed as one of the top 20 honey-producing flowers for honeybees. It is ideal for a wildlife-friendly planting scheme and makes a wonderful green manure.

Sometimes referred to as Perilla 'Britton' and called ‘Hojiso’ in Japan, this less typical form of Perilla has beautiful bi-coloured leaves. The serrated, red-veined leaves are green on top and deep purple-red underneath.

Shiso ‘Aoshiso’ leaves make for exquisite decoration. It is finely sliced with ginger and added to salads, sautéed vegetables, sashimi, tempura and sushi. Available either red or green, the red having more of an anise flavour and slightly less spicy than the green variety, which tastes more like cinnamon.

Sweet Pepper ‘Marconi Red’ is an Italian bred variety. Maturing a little later than regular bell peppers, they produce much sweeter and tastier fruits. This variety is often used for roasting and frying but also tastes wonderful when eaten fresh. It grows very well in unheated greenhouses or in pots on a sunny patio.

Incredibly sweet and beautiful, Sweet Pepper 'Golden Marconi’ have a wonderful taste and feature sweet skin, medium thick flesh and a mild and juicy flavour. The vigorous, productive plants produce long and slender fruits that are tapered to a blunt end. The fruits look elegantly beautiful on the plant.

'Golden Californian Wonder' is the widely adapted standard variety, a favorite with gardeners and widely used for commercial production. The plant does well in both cool and warm weather. It consistently produces large yields of blocky, four-lobed thick-walled fruit that is mild and sweet, tender and flavourful.

Think of the Cubanelle like a sweeter, more flavourful bell pepper, and you’ll understand why they are so popular. While stuffing is a possibility, fried with a little olive oil, the Cubanelles mild sweet taste really comes to life. It is perhaps best thought of as providing 'taste' rather than 'heat'.

Californian Wonder is the widely adapted standard variety, a favorite with gardeners and for commercial production. It consistently produces large yields of blocky, four-lobed thick-walled fruit that is mild and sweet, tender and flavourful. Perfect for salads, to stir-fries, grilling or stuffing.