Help!veg patch sos

Normal potatoes vs seed potatoes

You might be wondering why you would need to buy seed potatoes, when the spuds you buy from the supermarket often sprout without much encouragement. This comes down to a couple of factors – yes, you absolutely can try growing on from supermarket offerings, but there are some issues you might find. Seed potatoes are sold free from diseases, whereas you might find that your shop-bought spuds will have problems later on, and are more likely to grow diseased plants. Also, as they aren’t generally meant for this purpose, they can sprout poorly, with a less generous crop, and with varieties that may not be suitable for that time period. Overall, it is far better to get seed potatoes from a reputable supplier where you can make sure the stock is healthy, and the type of potato suits your needs in terms of growing space, time in the ground, and flavour and texture profiles.

Sprouting bird seed

If you are a regular bird feeder, you may have found that sometimes left over seed will sprout – especially after damp weather – but what can you do with these seeds? Is it wise to grow them on? They are unlikely to be as viable as seeds you would buy specifically for growing purposes, but it can be a fun experiment (especially for little growers) to see what can be grown from them for the birds to eat – for example, any sunflower seeds that germinate will offer beautiful flowers in summer, then the dried heads will offer birds and other wildlife extra food over the autumn and winter months.

How much broccoli?

If you are considering growing broccoli this year, you might be wondering how much you are able to harvest from each individual plant. In most cases, if we are talking about calabrese (rather then sprouting broccoli) the answer will be that you will get one large, main head from each plant, followed by smaller heads coming out of the side of the plant for several weeks after the main head harvest, so you do get quite a bang from your buck from each plant, even