Seed Pantry

Late April / May I potted on my tomato, chillies and pepper plants into the Seed Pantry 9cm rice husk pots that are a perfect size to continue growing your own summer veg.  By early June the young plants roots were poking out of the bottom of the pots and had grown to a height of 10cm to 20cm.  This means they where then ready to be planted outside in our small backyard in London.

To plant them in their final growing positions, which can be outside or inside, gently ease them out of the pots by tapping on the bottom, perhaps use a plant marker to run round the inside edge to loosen the soil, be careful not to damage the plants.  I prefer to use the rice husk pots several times as they are sturdy like plastic but entirely biodegradable, great!

Get your final containers, window boxes or pots and hanging baskets ready with some peat free compost in the bottom, I used the Seed Pantry coir Compost Blocks to add moisture retention to the pots.  Just soak them in 3 litres of water to make 9 litres of compost!

Add your compost and then the plants with enough space around them to grow into - around 10cm to 20cm is good. Add more compost and firm them in gently. Give them a good drink of water to help them settle into their new environment.

They like to be in a fairly sheltered and warm environment for continued growing and once they start to flower they will need a regular organic feed to help produce excellent juicy and spicy hot fruits (for the chillies!).

I'll report back on stage 3 once they flower and start producing baby peppers, chillies and tomatoes.

There's plenty of options for growing your own veg and sowing seeds at the moment, but a must for me in our small backyard in West London are a few tomatoes, plenty of chillies and peppers too.

You can get them going on your window sills using mini compost disc's or you could try recycling yogurt pots filled with compost and pop a hole in the bottom for drainage. Sow 1 seed per pot/disc, put them in a sunny place and keep watered. Then move them into a slightly bigger pot after they have 3/4 leaves, the seedlings in the picture above are ready for this stage, use a 9cm wide/tall pot or perhaps a used soup tub. Move the young plants outside in around 4 weeks once they are 10cm to 20cm tall, transfer to either larger pots of 20cm wide or more or 3 plants to a grow bag.

I'm growing Tumbling Tom tomatoes in 2 hanging baskets as well as the varieties from our new Heirloom Tomato Seeds box: Outdoor Girl which is more of a bush type plant with smaller fruits, Marmande with big beefy fruits and Alisa Craig with medium sized juicy fruits.  Apache chillies and sweet spanish peppers are also in the mix.  

If you’re keen to grow your own veg then these varieties are easy to grow and will produce excellent flavours in whatever space you have spare.  They do really well in pots on the patio/backyard/courtyard or on balconies and roof terraces with a little shelter...

Cono Sur teams up with the Seed Pantry at the Edible Garden Show

In line with its green credentials, award-winning Chilean winery Cono Sur is linking up with urban gardening company Seed Pantry to exhibit at this year’s Edible Garden Show at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire from 18^th – 20^th March.

Continuing their joint efforts to encourage people to grow, cook and eat their own produce, Cono Sur and Seed Pantry are inviting visitors to their ‘Urban Garden’ stand at the Edible Garden Show, where they will demonstrate innovative ways to grow fruit and vegetables in the smallest of spaces, from window boxes to balconies, using household items such as newspapers and even bikes!

Visitors to the stand will have the opportunity to taste the delicious, sustainably-produced wines within the award-winning Cono Sur range including the highly-acclaimed Pinot Noir, as well as learn how to plant vegetable seeds, make a plant pot out of old newspaper and find out about how to match their home-grown produce to Cono Sur wines.

Cono Sur is renowned for its sustainable production, becoming the first winery in South America to gain the ISO 14 064 certification, widely regarded as the most reliable measure of efficiency in measuring greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainability is at the heart of Cono Sur’s philosophy and the team goes to great lengths to produce perfect wines with the minimum environmental impact.

Cono Sur and the Seed Pantry’s Urban garden stand will be at the Edible Garden Show from the 18^th – 20^th March so come along and learn how to eat, cook and drink sustainably! For further information on sustainable living and seasonal recipe ideas, visit the website www.conosurgreencooks.com