No. 48: Everyone happy

Fortunately, we are past the trend of raking the entire garden bare and covering it with a layer of peat moss: the so-called “winterizing.” However, there is more to be said about this. Leaving the garden “as is” is completely in vogue and aligns with the laziness and natural inclination of the garden enthusiast. I am also a great proponent of this: lots of hiding places for birds, hedgehogs, etc. Seed and fruit-bearing plants make a nice addition to the autumn and winter diet of resident birds and winter guests. You can already feel it coming, there is a BUT... In the vegetable garden, it is better to clean up vegetable remains (stems, fallen leaves, etc.) and throw them on the compost heap. For safety, it is better to actually dispose of leaves from affected fruit trees. Not every compost heap gets hot enough to sufficiently kill pathogens, and thus you will later spread these germs back over your garden, ready for a new attack. Some hygiene is really desired. Growing and harvesting vegetables remains an intervention in nature; making your harvest garden a biotope every year is a good endeavor, but never 100% achievable... And then the ornamental garden. Think, for example, of roses with black spot: those brown spots with yellow edges. Very contagious and difficult to control. Part of the solution: dispose of or pick all fallen, but also affected, leaves from the plant. For plants that had other fungi, for example, powdery mildew: some hygiene helps prevent the infestation next time; with fruit, you can easily recognize mildew shoots, even in winter. Downy mildew (on the underside of the leaf) remains on dead leaves or in the soil. Do you suffer a lot from pear rust, for example? Look around your area for Juniper bushes or trees, as that is the source of this problem. Of course, there is much more to tell, treating couch grass for example..

Our resident birds (those that stay in our area all year round) are already looking for a suitable nesting site. Do you already have (used) nest boxes, but forgot to clean them? That's good for the birds' health. As a variation on the age-old starling pots, we have a beautiful assortment of bird pots, both for feeding and nesting. Free from fads, always beautiful, handcrafted and fired in the Netherlands. Here's a link to these bird pots. We have even more great bird products, a chapter I aptly named "Bird Love".

For 7 years, we have not issued our own guide (on a large scale). Everyone is digital these days. Yet, there's something charming about such a colourful booklet full of annual surprises! As the Dutch representative of Thompson & Morgan (UK), we send their catalogue to subscribers annually and ship orders from Dordrecht. No hassle with credit cards; simply settle your finances with us. The new guide is here again! You can also order it from us without a subscription:

No one can have missed it: there are mushrooms everywhere outside. A fun (and sometimes risky) sport to identify and pick edible species. Make sure you are well-informed, bring a booklet and a mirror... Just as it once happened with vegetables (10,000 years ago), it has been possible for about 35 years to grow your own at home. We have been involved from the beginning and sell complete kits, growing buckets for cultivating oyster mushrooms in your own coffee grounds, and plugs to insert into (fresh) logs yourself.

A great adventure for young and old!

Someone taps me on the shoulder; I’m engrossed in one of my tasks and need a moment to switch gears… Why is someone calling me Freek? It’s so funny: if your last name is Vreeken, people sometimes think your first name is Freek. Do people named Janssen also experience that with Jan? The question is asked by a true resident of Dordrecht, you “can” hear it. The switch is flipped: I have an animated chat with a fellow townsman and point him to our seed display in the store, which is entirely stocked with seeds that can still be planted (indoors or outdoors) now. Do you also want to know what you can still sow? In a mild winter, much more is possible than if we get an “Eleven Cities Tour winter” (oh, when…). The risk the hobbyist takes increases the growing tension, thus resulting in greater happiness if the harvest is successful!

The new harvest of Chayotes has arrived! Edible fruit and seed at the same time. You leave them on the windowsill and they sprout "by themselves"! Then pot them and keep them indoors during winter. It will become a large climbing plant for outdoors. We recommend the spiky Chayote; it's a bit prickly, but yields a much larger harvest than the smooth variety. Each fruit weighs 400-800 grams, and you can harvest 120 fruits per plant! More information about this ideal and tasty fruit can be found here:

May I remind you of this season's "fast-movers"?

Onions

There's still plenty of time to plant in this beautiful autumn. Garlic and all sorts of other onion varieties can go into the ground. Our extensive cultivation instructions for garlic also apply to most other onion varieties.

Click here for the complete assortment of available garlic

You can explore the rest of the onion varieties here.

Garden Clearance Sale

Customer, leaving the shop with bags full of plants: "I really like your Garden Clearance Sale because you get plants that you wouldn't otherwise think of...". I hadn't looked at it that way before. Also a nice idea as a gift for a gardening friend or a friendly therapy farm? We can still make 10-15 packages, while stocks last of course.

Fruits and Roses

As I mentioned earlier: our fruit assortment has expanded considerably, and next week we will receive our edible roses. These even include some novelties that I still need to describe. The garden is thus filling up again with all sorts of hardy shrubs. You can plant the shrubs essentially all winter, unless the ground is frozen. In addition to hardy plants, our Citrus collection is also growing considerably: small plants, but (from next Monday) also beautiful large ones with fruit!

This collection of (literal) Orangery plants can be found here. Our store thus remains well worth a visit year-round!

Flower Bulbs

The entire month of November is still ideal for planting flower bulbs. Because we store our stock cool, we even extend the season until the end of December. Meanwhile, the collection has already been significantly replenished twice, but there are gaps in varieties that are out of stock with the grower. Do you also know our unique collection of 35 varieties of Peonies? Directly from a (very good) grower, true to type guaranteed...

This ancestor of the leek and relative of elephant garlic is enjoying enormous interest. The taste is subtle: a hint of garlic, mixed with the aroma of leek and onions... who wouldn't love that?

A true Italian regional product, largely unknown elsewhere, a real Slow Food treat. Beautiful in the garden and aromatic on your plate. Read about it:

Native Americans were already extensively practicing Slow Food, avant la lettre! This beautiful flowering bulb forms a tasty, irresistible "onion." A nice addition to the Permagarden.

Beautiful blooms like an ornamental onion and tasty as an edible onion with edible flowers!