FREE SEEDS

It's not very often I give my seed box a clear out, I usually just accumulate packets of seeds and then when I come across ones I know I'll never grow or are past their 'sow by' date I throw them out. Yesterday however I was having a sit down in the PT for ten minutes and decided that I should clear my seed box and get an idea of what I have that I will use and what I'll need to buy next year - I ended up with 18 packets of various seeds that were headed for the bin despite them all being well within their 'sow by' date, simply because I know I'll never sow them.
But then I thought why not give them away? I've just joined a UK seed swap group on FB so that would be the ideal place to start however I cannot be doing with all the keeping tabs on so many packets so I thought I would give them away on here instead.
I have 3 sets to give away, all are unopened packets, all are within their 'sow by' dates which run out next year at the earliest and I'm also happy to post them free of charge to any UK address.
If you'd like the chance to win a set - or if you want a chance to win more than one set - just leave a comment below telling me which set/s you would like to win and then on Wednesday 25th September (one week from today) I will put the name of interested people in a separate hat for each pack and then choose names at random.

PACK 1
Aster - 'Milady mixed'.
Cerinthe Major Purpurascens.
Cornflower - 'Blue Boy'
Sweet Pepper - 'Bullhorn mixed'
Morning Glory - 'Heavenly Blue'
Basil - 'Red Rubin'

PACK2
Broccoli - Purple sprouting.
Kale - Nero do Toscana
Pepper - Cayenne
Chard - Vulcan
Beetroot - Detroit 2
Onion - Bedfordshire champion.

PACK3
Squash - 'Patty green tint'
Basil - Sweet
Coriander - 'Cilantro'
Kale - Nero di Toscana
Pepper - Hungarian hot wax
Broccoli - Early purple.






Hopefully some of you guys can make use of these seeds, I know I'll never get around to growing them either because I've tried and failed in the past or because I have more packets of them than I'll ever need.


I must say it's really very nice to wander round to the PT and the greenhouse areas now that I finally got my act together and cleared them - I actually enjoy looking around there now instead of focusing on what's straight ahead so that I don't have to face the mess, the best bit though is that it seems to have cleared my mind when I'm working in the garden, I'm no longer stressing about finding the energy or motivation to deal with those 2 areas.
It's also allowed me to tend some of the cuttings I took a few weeks ago but ignored cos I couldn't face going round there - after years of trying to get a decent cutting to produce a standard Fuchsia I finally have 2.

The one on the left is 'Hawkshead', it's a very hardy Fuchsia and survives the winter outside in the ground here but I don't know whether it will make a good standard as I've noticed the ones in the garden have really suffered from the wind this year and don't look so hot.
The one on the right is a cutting from a wild Fuchsia I have in the garden which in turn was a cutting taken from a plant growing wild up the road (Mr TG bought me back half the bush after I asked for a couple of stems). The wild one is certainly vigorous in growth and is showing the 3 leaves that are supposed to produce better canopies once fully grown but we'll have to wait and see.
They're both still a bit green for this time of year and there's no way those stems will survive the winter without freezing, not even in the polytunnel so I think I'll have to bring them indoors for the winter though I'm still not sure if they need to be more developed than this before they stop growing for the winter, so this could be a pointless exercise. But I have cuttings - yay!

Having tidied the PT and greenhouse areas (did I mention that already ;) I was free to potter about in the garden today so decided to do some weeding of the new beds and then begin spring bulb planting.
I don't grow bulbs very often because I am lazy and always forget to mark where I put them and usually end up putting a spade through them or digging them up (which I did today), so this time I made some more Cork markers and stuck one in the ground wherever I planted bulbs - such an easy solution and yet I've never done it.

I found it quite difficult to imagine where I would want them to come up in the spring time because there is so much summer growth on other plants at the moment - I'm 99% sure I'll regret 99% of where I put them.