winter hardy harvests
kale 'Nero di Toscana'
A wonderful crop for the winter vegetable garden. The flavour and texture improve once the frosts have started as its sugars are released by the cold. This variety is very popular for autumn and winter Italian cooking. I love this in a finely chopped topping for crostini, mixed with a few capers and green olives.
winter purslane (claytonia)
Crunchy, delicious and pretty winter salad leaf, hugely high in vitamin C. Will self sow. Totally invaluable for tasty winter salad bowls.
chard 'bright lights'
Use brilliant-coloured baby leaves raw in salad and larger leaves cooked like spinach. Excellent for chard gratin and risotto balls. A must for the ornamental veg garden. You'll only need one or two sowings for growing all year, as this variety is slow to bolt.
flower sprouts (kalette)
Flower Sprouts, or Kalettes, have been bred from crossing kale and Brussels sprouts. They are dense with minerals and nutrients including powerful antioxidants. Tasty and so good for us. This provides brilliant structure to the veg garden in the winter.
broccoli 'claret' (purple sprouting)
A sprouting broccoli is a must-have vegetable in any spring productive patch. They are very hardy, and crop over a long period, at one of leanest moments in the year – late winter and early spring.
Pak Choi Collection
A lovely looking and tasting mix of three delicious pak choi. We eat the smaller leaves in salad, and larger leaves in stir fries or as wilted Chinese greens. Pick the outer leaves and more will grow.
Leek 'Northern Lights'
One of our greatest revelatory plant combinations of last spring, a purple leek growing with different coloured tulips and picked to arrange with them too. We absolutely loved this edible and hugely ornamental pairing.
over winter peas collection
These two dwarf varieties can be sown outside in autumn in sheltered southerly gardens or grown in an unheated greenhouse, polytunnel or under cloches for peas at least a month earlier than usual.
anemone blanda 'blue shades'
Use this to create a blue carpet in your borders through sun or shade, and I love to pick them.
camassia leichtlinii subsp. suksdorfii caerulea group
The whopping azure-blue camassia which naturalises so successfully in garden or grass.
scilla mischtschenkoana
Delicate and pretty, exceptionally early-flowering bulb and invaluable for that as a pot topper to precede your tulips.
