Seed Exchange List

The Seed Exchange is a network of people offering seed.  My own seed is now all saved by myself here in France.

Please come back and visit this page again soon, I intend to update it regularly as I establish what seeds I have available.

Anyone can ask for seeds by emailing me at kitchengardeninfrance@gmail.com .    If you have a blog then why not offer some of your own spare seed?    To find out more about the Seed Exchange Network, why not take at look at Patrick's comments on

Bifurcated Carrots

Please note.  This is only the second year I have offered seeds for exchange and I have tried to keep the seeds pure.

Seeds for 2011

Beans

• Black Turtle Beans  -  These are a pole bean. The seeds were saved by myself.
• Purple Podded Pole Bean.  These beans are beautiful.  They are a deep purple on the vine and change to green when cooked.  The pods are long and full.  Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010
• Borlotto Bean - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010
• Poletschka Bean - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010

Pumpkin, Courge and Melon etc

• Monsieur Gary's Charentais Melon. M. Gary is a local farmer here at the Kitchen Garden in France and for years he has grown his own sweet Charentais melon, saving the seeds from one year to the next.  I'm pleased to have grown a few of these myself and kept the seeds to offer here.
• Courgette d'Italie - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010
• Queensland Blue Pumpkin - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010
• Butternut Pumpkin - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010
• Bari Cucumber - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010

Tomatoes

• Ian's Red Cherry Tomato.  A delicious variety of cherry tomato which grows successfully here, giving truss after truss of delicious rich red cherry tomatoes.  These are seeds I've saved myself after several years acclimatising the plant to the climate here.

Capsicums

• Cath's Red Cornos Capsicum - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010
• Yellow Cornos Capsicum - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010

Cabbage and Lettuce

• Joy's Cos Lettuce - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010
• Lollo Rosso Batavia Lettuce - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010
• Reine des Glaces Batavia Lettuce - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010
• Red Cabbage - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010

Herbs

• Dill - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010
• Chives - Seeds saved by myself at the end of the season 2010

Email me if you would like any of the above seed.

Garden Layout

After all the work in getting the new beds ready I thought I'd give you a list of what is actually growing in them and also, what is just around the corner...

 

So here is what is actually growing, today, in the garden (in the Ground)...or things waiting to be planted (And almost ready to go in the ground)

 

Bed Number	In the Ground	And almost ready to go in the ground:
Bed 1	Spunta Potatoes Oak Leaf Lettuce
Bed 2	Courgettes Dog Beans (Patrick) Dwarf French Yellow Bean (Sarah)	Bari Cucumber (Kate)
Bed 3	Borlotto Beans Wisley Magic Runner Bean Purple Runner Bean (Sarah) Black Turtle Beans (Kate/Toni)
Bed 4	Spunta Potatoes Binjt Potatoes Lollo Rosso Lettuce
Bed 5	Verte Grande Asparagus  Argenteuil Selection Asparagus
Bed 6	Queensland Blue Pumpkin (Marie-Sylvie)  Butternut squash (André)
Bed 7	Ananas Tomato (chaiselongue) Geant Tomato (Gabriel) Coeur de Boeuf Tomato (Marie-Sylvie)	Purple Ukraine Tomato (Miss Fuggle) Veeroma Tomato (Miss Fuggle) Golden Sunrise Tomato
Bed 8	Glasking Perpetual Rhubarb (Val) White Lisbon Spring Onions Lillia Red Salad Onion Jaune Paille des Vertus Onion Globe Artichoke
Bed 9		Melon Medley Charentais Melon (M.Gary)
Bed 10 (a)	Ian’s Red Cherry Tomato	Yellow Cornos Capsicum (Kate) Kaibi Round Pepper (Miss Fuggle)
Bed 11	Bok Choy	Red Radicchio Cavolo Nero (Kate) Cabbage Broccoli
Bed 12	Douce Provence Peas  Dwarf French Green Beans (Sarah)	Yakon (Patrick)
Bed 13 (a,c,e)	Longue d’Espagne Hazelnuts  Salad Leaves Radish (18 day) Radicchio
Bed 14 - 24	These beds are not yet Constructed
Bed 25	Groeseillier a Grappe Juniper Red Currant Raspberries (André)
Bed 26	Zeva Raspberries Magnific Delbard Raspberries September Raspberries Fall Gold Raspberries
Bed 27	Bay Evergreen Shrub (Still to identify) Deciduous Shrub (Still to Identify) Hyssop	Thyme
Bed 28	Cotoneaster Lacteus Deciduous Shrub (Still to Identify)	Wild Flower Mix
Bed 29	Cotoneaster Lacteus Kerria Japonica Pleniflora Lagerstroemia Rouge	Wild Flower Mix
Bed 30	Evergreen Shrub (Still to identify) Deciduous Shrub (Still to Identify)	Wild Flower Mix
SALAD GARDEN	Oak Leaf Lettuce Joy’s Cos Lettuce Radicchio Radish Broad Beans Garlic(Patrick)      Burgundy Creole      Cuban Purple Creole       Tuscan Ail Blanc de Lomagne Salad Onions Spring Onions Leeks Fennel Marais des Bois Strawberry Gariguette Strawberry	Batavia Lettuce Wild Alpine Strawberry
HERB GARDEN	Basil Chervil Chives Coriander Flat Leaf Parsley Garden Cress Garden Mint Peppermint Sage

 

The Salad Garden seems a bit strange now but it was originally the vegetable garden and it will become more salad oriented as we harvest the existing crops.

The layout for the new garden originally allowed 12 beds for expansion...but I have already pressed one into service to grow Hazelnuts (Bed 13) so there is space for just 11 more.

and here is a sketch plan of the new garden

Yacón, Lettuce, Rhubarb and lots of Tomatoes

After my trip, I spent the first day back home, in the garden.   It was a beautiful day and I spent the most part of it catching up on watering and just enjoying the great progress that had happened over the few days I was away.

	Earlier this month, Patrick, of Bifurcated Carrots, let me have two Yacón tubers and this is the first one to appear.    It has also been on a short holiday, residing in a neighbours greenhouse...... well, actually their swimming pool house, which is like one huge greenhouse!  The other tuber is now safely back in the dark of my boiler room, where it will enjoy a constant temperature of between 17C and 20C until it, too, decides to come out into the world.
	We had also sown some Joy's Cos Lettuce seeds before we went away and left a rather spindly collection of tiny seedlings to find their way in the big world.   I'm not sure someone isn't playing a joke on me as these cannot be the same seedlings that Kate and I left just over a week ago.
	Whilst thinking about lettuce, this is a firm favourite of mine,  Lollo Rosso.  It's deliciously tasty and crunchy and is certainly enjoying this year's spring weather. We also left a tray of Oak Leaf Lettuce seedlings.   Well, to be honest I thought we were leaving a tray of pots of soil with a few stalks in it.
	Look how they have grown.  I have a covered terrace area on the south side of my house.    It is open but enjoys full sun for a good part of the day and the roof keeps out the frost at night.   Whilst I was away, these seedlings were just left on on a table with a neighbour popping in occasionally and giving them a drink
	I saved some pumpkin seeds from the pumpkins which another neighbour has grown for many years.  I figure that if he is successfully growing them right next door to me then, even a newbie like me, should stand a chance. They are obviously going to be quite tasty, because you will see that one of them has already been eaten. The others seem to be doing ok though.
	Back in November 2008, one of our friends gave me three pots which she assured me had rhubarb seeds sown in them.  I carefully nurtured them over the winter and, to be honest was beginning to think they had failed me.  However, about a month ago, one of the pots showed the tiniest sign of life so I persevered. Now all three are up and growing and getting ready to enjoy their new home.
	And then there were some tomatoes....  Last autumn I saved seeds from my cherry tomatoes.   I got advice from friends and bloggers in Europe, the United States and as far away as Australia.    They all gave me great advice about how to collect the seeds.... pick a tomato!!! and how to save them.... dry the seeds!!!  I followed this advice and saved my first seeds. Sadly, all these people did not give me any advice about keeping the seeds, once saved, and when I came to sow them, I found my packet had got damp and there was just a collection of mouldy seeds all stuck to the paper.

After some discussion I decided to just sprinkle all the seeds onto a tray of seed compost and see what happened.   These seedlings are a tiny fraction of the result.   I have been giving away tomato seedlings to friends and neighbours now for about a month and still have far more than I can use.

I'm hoping that seeds from my cherry tomatoes will be the first seeds I am able to offer on the Blogger's Seed Network, from next year.

The First Planting

I'm in the process of making a completely new vegetable plot for this year and was pleased on Sunday when the first plant got put in the ground.

The plot has several beds, all about the same size and I have worked out a planting schedule for this year.  One of the beds, on the west side, is dedicated to berries and it was in this bed that I planted the first new bush I had bought.    During a visit to a garden centre at the end of last week, I found some fruit bushes which had been reduced as a result of storm damage during the recent hurricane.  There were bare rooted fruit trees and some container grown bushes, all reduced.     I bought three fruit trees and a redcurrant bush.

On Sunday, I planted the redcurrant bush in the berries bed, a peach tree to the south of the plot and a pear and a plum in the same hole in another part of the garden where, eventually, I want a little shade. The garden centre actually told me that the plum tree would pollinate the pear tree, but I don't know if this is correct....   It could be that the man was mistaken... or it could be that I misunderstood what he was saying whilst translating from French to English!!!!!

I also bought some Asparagus crowns and spent Monday preparing a permanent bed for them.

Seed potatoes are chitting in the windowsill in my workshop and the rest of Monday was spent in preparing another bed for potatoes

In the new cold frame we have Ching Chiang Pai Tsai (a kind of Bok Choy), Joy's Cos Lettuce, Lollo Rosso Lettuce, Batavia Lettuce all coming along as well as some herbs.  I have not grown Bok Choy before so this is part of my response to the Growing Challenge

Overnight temperatures are still dropping down to around -3C or -4C(25 - 27F) and it's proving difficult to maintain the temperature inside the cold frame above 0C  (32F)...  But it is called a cold frame after all!!   I'm trying to line it each night with some insulation material left over from some recent work carried out on the property.

Last year I saved some seeds from a red cherry tomato that I grew and particularly liked.   I was rather disappointed to see that they had got damp over the winter and gone a bit mouldy but then dried again. I sowed them anyway and was delighted to see the first shoots appearing.

 

Many of you will remember that Kate is staying here with me at the moment and as you can see, she is helping a great deal with the layout and organisation of the new plot.  It was at her insistence that a seating area was included in the plan....

Starting out on Saving Seeds!!

I've decided to try and save some seeds this year and then to grow them on next year.  I really don't know what I'm doing so I thought if I posted this piece here, describing what I have done, along with what I am intending to do, then it is likely that someone will read my piece, throw their hands up in horror and say...."OH  NOOOOO!!!  Don't do that whatever you do!!!"  and if it really is my lucky day, that person will then leave a comment saying what it is I shouldn't do and exactly why!!!!

So to start...

 

Ok, I have got some seeds from my tomatoes.  I chose just one variety of tomato, a simple red cherry tomato and kept about a dozen fruits from the six plants.    I then cut open the fruits and separated out the seeds and the pulp in a bowl of water.   Next, I collected the seeds together and discarded the pulp, and placed all the seeds in a paper coffee filter to dry.   Once they had completely dried, I transferred them to another coffee filter and sealed it.

Next I did lettuce......this time I let a couple of plants bolt and produce seeds, then I picked them and separated out the seeds from the chaff before putting them into coffee filter papers and sealing.

I was given some green sweet peppers by a friend who I know grows only open pollinated seeds so this time, I just harvested the seeds when I used the peppers.  I was also given some Charentais melons which again, I know, the farmer concerned only grows from kept seed, is completely organic and, in fact, grows them on my land.....So again, I just harvested the seeds when I prepared the melons....again drying them in a paper coffee filter before sealing the packs.

My intention is to grow on all of these seeds next year.   If I am successful, then I shall do the same again in the autumn 2009 and then, maybe I could offer some of the seeds to exchange....  It would be a start.......

Back in the Garden

Regular readers will know that the Kitchen Garden in France is situated at my home near Issigeac in the Perigord Region of South West France.   The property also has a self contained  holiday apartment.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been very busy constructing a swimming pool for use by our holiday guests.  It is a part of a grand scheme..... which will probably take longer to complete than the 300 years the main house has already been standing for....

Anyway, I mention this simply because, for the past two or three weeks, day after day I have been building this kit and not attending to my garden.... and therefore not having very much to write about in my blog....  You may have noticed a move away from kitchen garden towards la vie Français...  the parties I have written about were wonderful events and deserved their place in the blog.  The article on Summer and sunflowers similarly. 

However, tonight I want to return to the dirt....

 

So... I have some red cabbage which have been in for a long time now and are looking superb.  Onions and Garlic are ready to pull and will be out of the ground tomorrow I would guess..  The strawberry patch has been ok... It was planted late and although we have had a few berries we are expecting the main crop next year.  The plants have really established though, and I have just about twice as many as I planted back in April/May

The one rhubarb crown has been prolific this year and I have been cutting and freezing for a month or so now.  I'm thinking of moving the crown around November time but am unsure as I hear bad storied of people moving them....  My intention was to lift and divide it and move it at the same time.

A few days ago, I sowed some broccoli which are now up and with tiny little leaves.   I'm not ever so successful with seeds so anything like this is a challenge.   They have survived so far.....  Today I sowed some batavia lettuce (a French version of Webbs, I think)and on Tuesday some Fennel.

Tomatoes have been my biggest success this year.  Tomato plants ended up dotted about and that hasn't proved too good for watering etc.  Next year I really must put aside some space and grow all my tomatoes in one place.....

But we haven't bought tomatoes for several weeks now and are enjoying the different varieties.... Marmande, cherry red, golden sunrise... and a "unknown"variety which Michael and Mary gave me.

On the beans front, I have been very unsuccessful.   Patrick, over at Bifurcated Carrots gave me some Dog Bean seeds earlier in the year.   I have grown them but not at all well.   I think the spot I chose was too shaded and I did get them in the ground quite late as well.   The few beans I have had have tasted wonderful though... but not enough for a good meal.  I'm not giving up with these and am hoping to sow some again next year... a bit earlier and maybe in a better spot and hopefully have a bumper crop..... 

I mentioned that Michael and Mary had given me some tomato plants.  I didn't realise until recently that Mary is quite a kitchen gardener herself.  I stole this photo whilst she wasn't looking  during a recent visit to see them.

I've been eating salad leaves for some time now and haven't bought any recently.  I have 3 varieties of lettuce, as well as some wild chicory.   I recently entertained a professional chef for dinner.... which was quite daunting... but he commented very favourably on the fact I had included mint leaves in with the mixed salad leaves.....

Lettuce is bolting now as the hot weather hits but I'm looking a shady bed where maybe I can persuade some to grow for a little longer yet....

Finally, in the herb garden, I'm doing ok with the basics, basil, flat leaf parsley, mint and dill, all growing in containers on the terrace.

Yet more seeds

Those of you who have read my blog over the past few weeks will know that a recurrent theme has been my inability to grow anything from seed. Lots of people have said very encouraging things to me and bullied me into not giving up.

So, today, I tried again. I planted one of those 24 cell things with 8 each of three different varieties of leaves, batavia, lollo rosso and wild chicory. I think that’s what I have sown but – my translation might have missed something as, of course, all the seed packets were in French.

I have taken steps to prevent everything being eaten by mice. I looked at propagators in the garden centre and now, Sylvia, my wife, has a drawer missing from her vegetable rack!!! I used good compost –which sadly I had to buy as my own is not good enough for seeds yet - Maybe next year though.

So, if in a couple of weeks a photo appears you’ll know it worked. If you hear no more then please...

I also bought a French – English Horticultural Dictionary - I’m hoping that might help me a bit. I’m expecting delivery tomorrow so I’ll let you know what I think.

Ian