Enjoying something of a salad revival, Spinach is probably most well-known for allegedly giving Popeye super-human strength - but it's the vitamin C and calcium contained in the dark green leaves of our organic F1 Palco variety which is proving popular with vegetable gardeners. Resistant to four strains of downy mildew, this variety can be sown almost all year round and is delicious added to salads in 'baby leaf' form or as mature leaves. Supplied in packets of 250 seeds.
• Packet of 250 seeds • Seeds certified organic by the Soil Association • Spinach can be sown almost all year round; from mid-winter to early autumn • Late sowings (early autumn) will overwinter for spring harvest • Crop takes between 10-12 weeks to mature during main season • Can be harvested as tender 'baby leaves' or left to grow • Suitable as a 'cut and come again' crop • Sow seed 8cm apart and leave 30cm between rows • Sow in a fertile soil capable of retaining water • Choose a sunny aspect with partial summer shade for best results
Work to rule! Keep your seeds on the straight and narrow with this very useful Sneeboer long handled hoe-type tool. Perfect for creating long, even furrows for sowing or planting seedlings and thereby achieving better regularity of planting for more aesthetic results in the bed/border.
On the home front - Needless to say, friends and neighbours come up with various queries and problems, some of which I feel are worth airing here. My neighbour Nessie, undoubtedly the star of Round Oak allotments where she cuts a mean furrow, had a smallholding in Romania before she settled in Wadhurst. There the universal cultivating tool is something that slightly resembles an onion hoe, but which has a pointed triangular head – excellent for everything, she says, from hacking at lumpy soil to weeding between rows to creating fine drills for seed planting. Many moons ago she asked me if such an implement is available in this country. I trawled around on the internet and leafed through my catalogues and brochures and came up with nothing. Then at Chelsea Flower Show this year I saw what I assumed is the very thing she is looking for. Made by Sneeboer, the makers of traditional Dutch tools beloved by many; it is a new thing called a long-handled rulemaker hoe. It looks fantastic and is, Nessie agrees, the very thing she has been looking for. Thorny Problems with Helen Yemm, Daily Telegraph, 13 June 15, 2009