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Baby Salad Leaf

Grow your own salad leaf and baby leaf mixtures from seeds, make your own bags of salad leaf either spicy or mild, adding rocket, mustards or watercress, harvest at the young leaf stage as required, cheaper and fresher than buying from the supermarket. For a continual supply make successional sowings, broadcast sow into trays or prepared ground.

Ornamental chillies and Flowers Which Best Buy

WHICH Magazine Ornamental Chillies Best Buys
The best Patio varieties tested for Looks and taste Basket Of Fire, Cheyenne, Loco, Super Chilli, large selection of ornamental chillies available to grow from seeds.

WHICH recommended New Flower for 2013 Lobelia Blues Brothers as easy to grow long lasting display and free from pests and diseases throughout the trial.

New Chilli varieties

New chilli pepper varieties for 2013 include many superhot chillies, these can all be found under our seed section, main menu, Chillies A to Z and we have some available in the Chilli Collections; Peach Bhut Jolokia, Fresno chilli, Jays Red Ghost Chilli and 7 Pot Brain Strain.

New Brassicas from Garden Magazine

Brassica New Hybrids available, vegetable seed Petit Posy Flower Sprout VEG1035 has sprouts that are fully open, colourful and frilly - vegetable Cabbage Kalibos VEG407 A new pointed cabbage variety with distinctive red leaves Suited for growing as greens, hearted cabbages, raw as a salad cabbage, the distinctive colour makes it ideal for the salad bowl - Modern coloured cauliflowers Graffiti AGM VEG167 Purple Cape VEG041 and Sunset VEG547 bring colour to the table.

Broad Beans for Autumn Sowing

There are a number of varieties suitable for autumn sowing Aquadulce, The Sutton, Grano Violetto, and in milder areas broad bean Stereo, sow direct 23cm apart, 5-7cm deep in rows 60cm apart. Autumn sown broad beans should be ready for harvest late April.

Autumn Sowing Sweet Peas

Sweet peas can be sown during late September to end of October, they are easy to sow and can be sown up to the end of November if the weather is warm. Sow 1 seed in a cardboard toilet roll tube or any household cardboard tube cut to size filled with compost. Sowing Autumn will allow the plants to get established quickly in the spring when they are planted out. Autumn sown plants are best pinched out to encourage branching at approx 10cm. The young plants can then be over winter in a cold frame with ventilation or in a unheated greenhouse, ventilate when possible and protect plants from heavy frosts. Chipping (opposite the eye) the seeds aids germination. For beautiful blooms throughout the flowering season try to prevent Sweet Peas from setting seed. Large selection of Sweet Peas look out for new varieties this autumn.

Grow your own salad and baby salad leaves

Keep sowing every 3 weeks Spring or Salad Onion, seeds can be sown in June right up to August, some varieties can be sown autumn to overwinter, Salad and Baby leaf mixtures, baby leaf vegetables and lettuce, sow every 2 weeks to ensure a continual supply of young salad leaves. Sow salad leaf mixtures in borders, pots, containers, seed trays and grow bags. Lettuce can be difficult to germinate in the hot weather, it is worth experimenting by sowing in a cool shaded area outdoors or even a cool room indoors if the weather is too hot. Do not forget sowing of Celtuce, Corn Salad, Rocket and Pak Choi grown as baby veg or cut and come again (which prevents them from bolting during summer) the young inner tender leaves are ideal in salads.

Gardeners World & readers favourite beans

Broad Beans:- Aquadulce Claudia -chigh yielding easy to grow, The Sutton - dwarf variety ideal for containers, Imperial Green Longpod - high yielding
Runner Beans:- Gardeners World Experts Choice SCARLET EMPEROR - high yielding, Enorma- long pods, Painted Lady - Victorinan variety, Lady Di - Stringless
French Beans:- Blue Lake - Stringless staraight pods, Cobra - Our top selling French bean, Gardeners World Experts Choice HUNTER - High yielding great flavour
Grow your own Vegetable Beans

Grow your own featured vegetables

Vegetable garden seed featured in Grow Your Own Magazine:
Brussels sprouts One of the best for early cropping is Crispus top quality dark green buttons. A mid season vegetable variety Trafalgar is excellent with medium sized smooth buttons. Falstaff no longer available, replaced by Red Bull
Asparagus a luxury vegetable crop that takes 2-3 years before the first harvest but well worth waiting for, some of the best varieties from seed are Gijnlim, Backlim and Conovers Collossal.
Microgreens Grown from seed they are harvested at the seedling stage when they have grown their first set of leaves.
Buy seeds online Quality garden seed flower herb vegetable seed and wildflower mixtures.

Growing salad leaves

Sow seed for salad leaves for a continual supply right up to autumn, lettuce, mixed and baby salad leaf, corn salad, land cress, raddish, salad onion and annual herb seeds for fresh salads straight from the garden or containers. Sow Pak choi from late July onwards, picked early for baby leaf for salads and stir fries. French beans can be sown up to mid July for late harvests untill the first frosts. Sow perennial and biennial seeds. Sow winter pansies for containers and hanging baskets.

Sow Ornamental Kale

Sow seeds of Ornamental kale they make excellent cut flower subjects and container plants, sow seeds from late May until early August and as the temperature drops their colour will intensify. You can overwinter late sown plants for colour in containers early spring. A great plant for impulse sales during Autumn and early spring especially when displayed in containers and as cut flowers in vases and flower arrangements. See Ornamental Kale seeds for our large selection.

GARDENERS WORLD Magazine recommended plants from seeds for Summer Pots

Raise your own annual plants from seeds for summer pots, containers or the garden borders.

Fancy Frills Combine Zinnia with Portulaca & Kohl Rabi Ballot in a 40cm pot

Evening Splendour Combine Nicotiana (try Hot chocolate [alternative] & Lime Green) with Oenothera Sunset Boulevard

A Field of Dreams wild Cornflower, Cornflower Black ball and Grasses Eragrostis Ruby Silk

Full of Impact Amaranthus Foxtail, Amaranthus Green Thumb & Ornamental Millet Purple Baron

Garden Design & Writing by Helen Riches

New Sweet Pea varieties

New sweet peas includes heirloom varieties, highly scented and Exhibition varieties

Sweet peas:-

Alan Titchmarsh - Exhibition variety
Almost Black - Dark maroon almost black, the darkest sweet pea available
April in Paris - Lilac Picotee
Blanche Ferry - Heirloom
Blush Perfume - Exhibition variety
Butterfly - Heirloom
Cathy - Cream highly scented
Gwendolin - Exhibition variety
Heathcliff - Eye catching blue highly scented
Juliet - Citrus scecnted, cream with apricot blush flowers
Lady Grisel Hamilton - Heirloom
Lianne marie - Striking Magenta flowers
Nelly Viner - Heirloom
Purple Prince - Heirloom
Velvet Crush - Exclusive
Winston Churchill - Exhibition variety Sweet Pea seeds

Late Sown Lettuce Varieties

The following Lettuce seed are the best performers in the late sown lettuce trials by Sarah Raven in the Cutting Garden.
Black Seeded Simpson
Cocarde
Erika
Marvel of Four Seasons
Red Sails
Reine De Glace
Unicum
Valdor

Which magazine recognise Nickys Nursery.

Nickys seeds awarded 'Which Best buy' for the second year running, and Which Enthusiasts Choice.
Nickys Nursery Ltd achieved the highest germination rate of all the 17 seed companies tested, awarded joint 2nd place overall of all the major UK seed companies tested. Read more http://www.whatconsumer.co.uk/seed-germination-often-impossible/

Grow your own even more popular.

More and more people are turning to growing their own fruit and vegetables from seeds, many councils report a long waiting list for allotments. The advantages are endless, harvesting your own vegetables full of freshness and flavour straight from the garden. Kids love growing their own vegetables, gardening is great exercise, cheaper than buying vegetables from the supermarket. The excess you grow can always be frozen or used for making jams, pickles and chilli sauces.
You do not need an allotment to grow vegetables; you can grow your own vegetables at home even if you have only a small garden, patio, or windowsill which is ideal for some chilli peppers and herbs. You can even grow strawberries and some tomato varieties in hanging baskets. There are many vegetables that can be grown in containers on a balcony or patio these include tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, baby sweet corn, carrots, cucumbers, radish, beans the list is endless. Many of the Oriental vegetables with careful planning can be grown all year round given the right protection.
In 2008 we introduced vegetables in a smaller packet, ideal for gardeners who only have small gardens or patios, cheaper and less waste. These are the same quality seeds in a smaller packet. Following on from this we introduced a smaller packet size of our chilli peppers and now sell chilli peppers from £0.50 a packet and vegetables from £0.59 a packet, we have now noticed many seed companies are now following the trend for smaller packets.