Plants for Places

People often wonder exactly what there is for us to do in the plant centre at this time of year. The hectic Christmas season is now a distant memory and the spring rush is still several weeks away. Far from being a time to find a cosy little corner to hibernate in (although somedays its very very tempting!) January is the time when we tend to clear the decks, make a few changes and start afresh.

One of the areas we've been concentrating our efforts on over the last week is what we call the "Plants for Places" area. This is where most of our shrubs, climbing plants and perennials live but instead of arranging them in a meaningless alphabetical system like just about all the other garden centres do, we've developed a much easier way for customers to find their plants. Having identified the most common places in the garden that gardeners want to find plants for, we display our plants to give you solutions for each one. For instance if you want a climber for a north or east facing wall, our "Plants for Shady Walls" benches are the place to go!

As our plant stocks are relatively low at this time of year, we use this opportunity to clear the benches down and carry out any major display changes. This has given us the chance to tweak our themes a little bit, expanding the more popular ones and changing the less popular. Last year had several customers asking for large, fast growing shrubs so they could create a screen so today we've created a new plant collection for that.

Springtime is by far the peak selling time for shrubs so we obviously make sure we get stocked up in time. We always make sure we've got as many fresh plants as possible, ether from crops we've grown ourselves or from other growers. Our policy is to source our produce locally whenever possible so our first choice grower who supplies the majority of our shrubs is based here in Norfolk.

This week saw the year's first (and one of the biggest) deliveries of shrubs so we can build our stocks in good time for the spring. As the weather is still very cold we only start off with the very hardiest of plants, mostly the deciduous ones, and as they've been grown outdoors on the grower's nursery they can take the cold in their stride.

Let's Make Marmalade!

Citrus crops are at their very best right now and along with all the usual suspects we're now seeing some of the more different types that only come along to the farm shop this time of year. Clementines are tasting devine right now, Blood Oranges are a chefs delight and soon we'll see the curious Minneola (affectionately referred to in the trade as "Titty Fruit", but more on that another time!)

Seville Oranges are in season right now and that mean's just one thing; Marmalade! This bitter orange is perfect for making your own marmalade and if you love it as much as we do this could be quite a wise investment. Keep reading for Sarah's delicious recipe!

The Seville Orange was originally known as the Bitter Orange but it was later named after the famous Spanish city where more than 14,000 of these trees line the streets. Imagine the scent in the flowering season and all that free "marmalade" covering the streets in the spring when the fruit eventually falls!

Sarah’s Simple Marmalade Recipe (makes about three jars)
400g Seville oranges (about four)
1 lemon
1 litre water
800g white sugar
1 tsp soft dark brown sugar (optional but it makes the colour rosier)

With a potato peeler or sharp knife remove all the orange zest in strips, cut away any white pith then shred the zest and tie it in a small square of muslin. Finely slice the oranges; pith, flesh, juice and all, and the whole lemon, and tip into a heavy saucepan. Add the water and your muslin bag of zest and simmer for about two hours until the pith is tender.

Pick out the bag holding the zest, and leave to drain on a plate. Line a colander with a few layers of muslin, place over a bowl, tip in the contents of the pan, and leave to drip for an hour - you need all the liquid as it contains the vital pectin that makes the marmalade set. You could squeeze any remaining juice from the pith, but it will make the marmalade slightly cloudy.

You should have about 750ml of liquid. Boil it down if you have more, or add water if you have less.

Return the liquid to the pan; add the zest from the bag, and the sugar. Bring to the boil, and then quickly simmer until it reaches 104C. Keep the temperature constant for five minutes. A spoonful on a cold saucer should form a crinkly skin after cooling for five minutes. If it doesn't, simmer for a few minutes more; but you may have to settle for soft-set. Switch off the heat, leave for 20 minutes, spoon the marmalade into hot, sterilised jars, seal with cellophane and rubber bands and leave somewhere cool overnight to set to a jelly.

Enjoy!

Rhubarb, Rhubarb!

One of the things we look forward to on these cold dark January days is the start of the Rhubarb season. And today is the day that the first cut of the English Rhubarb hit the market place and James was well chuffed to have grabbed himself a box this morning for the shop. Rhubarb has been enjoying a bit of a revival in recent years but it's popularity really soared last year after Delia was seen on a TV advert promoting its virtues on behalf of a certain supermarket. Watch this space for some of Sarah's scrummy ideas!

Pictured here with this morning's Rhubarb is our lovely Emma, a familiar face in our farm shop. Unfortunately for us Emma has decided to head off for pastures new. Now her children are both of school age Emma will be rejoining the career ladder and is going back to project management.

By the way, can anyone remember the hilarious 1980 TV comedy "Rhubarb Rhubarb?" The all star cast included Eric Sykes, Hattie Jacques, Charlie Drake and Roy Kinnear and during the entire 30 minutes of the programme the only word muttered by the entire cast was "Rhubarb!"

Another new year crop that's now got into full swing is Purple Sprouting Broccoli. Every morning James heads off down the field to cut as many fresh spears as he can get his hands on and almost every day the entire cut has sold by the end of the day. With fresh greens fairly sparse at this time of year sprouting broccoli takes centre stage now among the veg. We in fact grow 4 different varieties of this crop in order to get a succession to harvest over the next few weeks. The earliest variety gets planted in the early summer and we started to cut it just before Christmas. This is in full swing now and the next variety is now coming on stream; this was planted late summer. Hopefully we'll be cutting until April.

The second new arrival in the farm shop this morning was a brand new range of specialty breads that we've begun trialing from "The Pye Baker of Norwich". Today's delivery looked a real picture with a gorgeous looking selection to tiger loaves, sour doughs, foccacias and many more. Sarah straight away bagged the only mature cheddar cheese and melting onion bread for her tea tonight whilst the red onion marmalade and rosemary was also snapped up straight away.

Hear it on "The Grapevine"

Welcome to the "Grapevine!"
We're always a very busy lot spreading ourselves between the plant centre, the farm shop and the fields, growing and selling lots of wonderful local produce. Follow our "Grapevine" where we'll keep you up to date with what we're doing, what we're growing and share all those lovely plants and produce with you.

 Who are the Green Team?

James is our (almost) veteran horticulturist, who despite his tender young age and boyish good looks is already approaching 30 years of working in the gardening industry! During this time he's run one of the region's biggest garden centres, been a writer for a national gardening magazine as well as numerous regional publications and had a plant phtography business.

Michelle (James's other half) has grown up with the business since her parents launched it over 15 years ago. Anyone who knows Michelle knows she never sits still and so she's the driving force behind everyone else and keeps us all on our toes. There's nothing she likes better than getting her hands dirty and masterminding the growing of all our crops for the plant centre.

Sarah is our resident food fanatic and the Manager of our Farm Shop. She just loves to get her hands on as much fresh local produce as possible, wether its to sell in the shop or experiment with at home where she's always cooking up new ideas. Sarah always has plenty to say and is full of ideas and suggestions to spice up your meal times so keep watching the grapevine for some really tasty ideas!

We are also very ably assisted by Al, Rita, Betty and Milly, with hopefully one or two more fresh faces joining us very very soon!. Here's Milly pouring a smoothie at one of our many tasting days

Happy 50th Birthday to our "Little Red Tractor!"

Here's another vital member of our team, our Massey Ferguson 35 (our "Little Red Tractor!"). Its now fifty years since our 35 first came into the family when Sam Debbage (James's Grandad) first took delivery of it; fresh off the production line. The 35 has been used on almost a daily basis ever since and he even makes frequent appearances at the farm shop for the kids to enjoy!