It’s the RHS’s National Gardening Week, the sun is shining on the Organic Blooms cutting garden, and the team – chickens and dogs included – is full of the joys of Spring! Our growing season may have been in full swing for a while already, but it’s not too late to start yours, even if you’re totally new to gardening. Here are our suggestions.

  1. Plant a cutting garden! Cutting-gardens-R-us, so of course it’s our top suggestion, but it doesn’t have to be as grand as it sounds. You can start small – you’d be surprised how much colour you can get from a couple of square metres or a few containers, plenty to keep both the insects and your kitchen table jug happy. Clear your patch of weeds (dig them out, don’t pull, as many can grow back from fragments of root), dig in some organic matter such as peat-free multipurpose compost (or just fill a couple of large patio pots with compost) and pop in a selection of flowering annuals. The easiest way to start is with hardy annuals such as Cornflower, Nigella, Larkspur and Calendula – or easier still -try our plug plant boxes for a great value way to create your cutting patch.  Our boxes include some of teh harder to grow varieties such as Ammi majus and Molucella. We prefer to plant transplants at Organic blooms, but with hardy annuals you can get away with broadcasting seed sparingly onto a prepared bed and raking them in.  To extend your season, consider doing 2 or 3 sowings of hardy annuals – we do them in February/March, May and July as a minimum.  Follow your hardy annuals with half-hardys such as zinnia, sunflower, cosmos.  You can sow these now, but don’t plant them out until Mid May.

coming up tomorrow – why single blooms are all together more desirable!