No. 139: Brand new Year

A new year and lengthening days are good for us. We hope and wish you a Happy New Year: 2025! How wonderful it is to look forward to the first day you can sit in the garden or on your (or a) patio with blooming trees (achoo!), flower bulbs keeping their promises, and the first hum of the bumblebee queen...

For now, we are still in winter, even some snow this week, but it will be dry again in the coming days. Occasionally, a nice walk and some chores in the garden. In the rest of this Newsletter, you can read what you can already do to bring spring closer.

When the first night frosts arrive, you realize: it's still possible in the Netherlands and Belgium! The (sub)tropical plants such as Bougainvillea, Brugmansia, the increasingly popular Mandevilla, Abutilon, Lantana, etc., should now at least be placed close to your house with a few layers of climate fabric over them. Oleanders and Olive trees can withstand some cold, but with more severe daytime frost, it's still better to wrap them up. I remember a time when all Fig bushes at nurseries had frozen to death, but such frost is rare these days. I've brought my Caladium tubers indoors, pot and all. They are in a slightly heated room. My Dahlia tubers are planted so deep they hardly ever freeze. Even the Taro tubers (Colocasia esculanta) have been outdoors in winter for years; they freeze and partially rot, but there are always parts along the edge of the tuber that sprout again.

For years, I've also had a beautiful Cape Primrose (Sparmannia) outdoors, which is now neatly in a winter tent (see photo) and will certainly make it again!

We offer some useful materials to protect your crops:

Winter is the best time to spread slow-release fertilizer and soil improvers over your garden. What you put in, you get out in enjoyment and yield, and vice versa: what you take out and eat, must also be replenished. I'll list some slow-release fertilizers:

• Our Organic Garden Soil has such a high organic content that it is rightly called compost.
• A fine fertilizer, full of minerals, which also aerates your soil and can be used as mulch against evaporation, is Basalt Lava in granular form, also known as Igneous Rock.
• Bentonite is ideal for lighter soils and also contains many minerals (trace elements).
• Lime is almost always good for the garden; it helps against acidification and lightens heavy clay. It is best to use lime in combination with humus-replenishing fertilizers such as Compost, Worm Castings, or Guano. We sell Lime (element Ca, not to be confused with Potash = K) in different forms: Dolokal, Sea Shell Lime, and Seaweed Lime.
• Worm Castings are actually a kind of noble compost, beautifully fine and packed with organic matter!
• You spread Alum around plants in your garden that thrive better in slightly more acidic soil. It is used, for example, to keep hydrangeas blue or to make them blue. Also very good for heather plants, conifers, and many evergreen shrubs such as Skimmia.

If all goes according to plan, the transparent roof in our sales garden will be reinstalled this Saturday so that you can shop dry even in winter when you are outside with us.

Those who know our store know that we also have a beautiful sales area on the first floor, which we call the "Bollentoren" (Bulb Tower) because most of our flower bulbs are always displayed there. This area has since been supplemented with sowing aids and quality tools.

Well, above the ceiling of that Bulb Tower is my large roof terrace, and it started leaking a few years ago. After various repairs, this problem has been thoroughly resolved (30K later), and we can now address the subsequent damage in the Bulb Tower. Therefore, this area will be closed for the next 2 weeks; we are going to make it a spiffy floor again! A blessing in disguise: the insurance largely covers consequential damage.

First, our beautiful, large Amaryllis bulbs for indoor cultivation! We always have to buy a lot of them to secure that fantastic quality. We often have some left over, and the last bulbs can go for a soft price! Click here for this great offer

Then we still have a small stock of alliums: Garlic, Wild Garlic, Okinawa Shallots, Mouse Garlic, Pink Garlic, Siberian Garlic, French Grey Shallots, Italian Wild Onions and Native American Onions. These hardy alliums are still in good condition and can be planted well in the coming period. If you can't plant them right away, fill a crate with soil and plant the bulbs close together, place them outside, so they can root and grow a little! The offer for the last alliums can be found here:

Many edible tubers are already arriving for the new year! Soon, seed potatoes will also be trickling in, but more on that later... The special tubers you can already order (and some of which you can even plant in winter) can be found here:

We also have something beautiful to experience in the field of bulbs. We already have 81 of the more than 600 species available. Sometimes it is wise not to wait too long to order, as some species have limited availability. Take a look at these newcomers.

Speaking of seeds, in January you can already fully start sowing the 3 well-known fruiting vegetables.

View and order our available Eggplants

View and order our available Bell Peppers

View and order our available Chili Peppers

These fruiting vegetables love a high germination temperature (25-30EC), you can locally heat your seed tray with a heating mat.

We also sell mini-greenhouses with built-in heating. After germination, the temperature can be lowered a bit, and the seedlings should be placed in very bright light or under a special LED lamp.

You can find all information about this in theprevious Newsletter; meanwhile, many beautiful colours have been added!

A fun task that almost always succeeds. We therefore offer you a lot of auxiliary materials. Our assortment will only increase in the coming period, so keep an eye on it! But for now: get started and enrich your salad with home-grown "vitamin bombs"...

As a teenager, I had to buy a bottle of "burdock root in brandy" from the pharmacy for my grandmother. She used it to massage her head to prevent hair loss. It was poured from a beautiful bottle containing alcohol and long, floating burdock roots. We didn't know then that this remedy came from the somewhat magical doctrine of signatures and didn't actually work that way...

This beautiful plant grows wild here; you probably know the familiar mature flower heads that cling to your clothes. As children, we used to throw these burrs at each other. In hindsight, quite dangerous, as they can harm skin and eyes... They get stuck in animal fur, thus spreading the plant over long distances. But the animal suffers a lot from them.

In Japan (Gobo), China (Niubang), Taiwan, and Korea (Ueong), this plant is treated more seriously. After sowing, it is left to grow for several months, and then the young roots are harvested. These taste mild, sweet, slightly spicy, and are delicious in salads. You can also cook or fry them; there are many applications online. Besides its unproven effectiveness against hair loss, Burdock Root does have many proven medicinal properties. I'll name a few: blood-purifying, bacteria-suppressing, and good for the skin. You can find much more on this site, among others.

We offer special varieties that produce good quality roots; you can find the seeds here

This beautiful cross between the Aronia berry and Rowan berry has resulted in an attractive little tree with delicious berries! 1 tree is already enough to guarantee good fruit set, very popular in the Food Forest. You can find it here.

Blueberries are very healthy and extremely tasty. The best and most delicious ones you'll harvest ripe from your own garden, but make sure the soil is very humous, possibly made more acidic with some (already mentioned) Alum.