When to plant tulips
There’s some comfort in knowing that Fergus Garrett, of Great Dixter, plants his tulips on Christmas Day but you might be better advised to plant your tulips over a clear weekend in November (weather permitting ofcourse).

Where to buy Tulips

Regulars of the blog will know we generally buy most of our bulbs online from Peter Nyssen.

5 Must have Tulips 

One of the advantages of keeping a garden blog is that it creates a visual record. It’s simple to look back over posts from the Spring to see what was successful as well as what failed. Here’s five tulips I’ll be growing again this year :

Tulip Barcelona

Tulip Clusiana Cynthia - yellow with subtle red exterior

Tulip Ballerina

Tulip Purple Dream

Tulip brown sugar

Painting by Chris Cyprus - click picture to see more by Chris.

It’s National Allotment Week from the 6-12^th of August and allotment sites are being encouraged to hold a party for the plot holders and the local community.  Our allotment has a party every year and it is always hugely popular.  It’s an encouragement to have everything looking as good as possible and an opportunity spend an afternoon socialising instead of weeding.

Now I know that it’s only the south and the east of the country that is short of water, but mulching is generally a good thing even in areas where rain continues to fall – for example it stops the soil splashing up onto leaves in heavy rain. But for those of us already looking apprehensively at our water butts and working out how long they will last, mulching is a first line of defence in retaining moisture. I use a bark mulch in the woodland areas, round fruit bushes and for large containers – and Strulch, a lightweight mineralised straw mulch, on the borders and on the vegetable beds.

I always think that setting potatoes to chit is a bit like putting eggs in an incubator – they just need the right conditions to get them growing. Predictably the First Earlies have been the quickest to sprout and if this mild weather continues I will soon be putting them in the ground, but I will stick with tradition and plant my maincrop potatoes on Good Friday.

Sow now

A timely packet arrived from Unwins Seeds this morning with a selection of their Gro-Sure range of seeds for autumn sowing, so those bare patches in the vegetable garden can now be pressed into service. In case you are thinking of doing a bit of sowing yourself, the selection consisted of Rocket Pegasus, Mizuna Red Knight, Coriander Confetti, Radish French Breakfast and Onion Hi Keeper.

Meanwhile back at home the time is right to plant saffron. Some of you may recall my earlier post on growing saffron and you’ll be pleased to see that Suttons Seeds have this available at a good price here – saffron offer (whilst stock lasts). It may take some time before you start to see a return on your investment.