Preparing for Spring . . . Saved by Black Plastic ?

Well, Spring must be coming sometime soon - we hope!

In the Autumn, it was so wet that we waited for drier weather to do our normal autumn tasks - and waited - and waited . . .

Now perhaps it is not exactly getting drier, but the soil is not staying 100% saturated for quite all the time, so maybe we had better get on with some of those Autumn tasks before Spring starts chasing us.  There is some talk of an early Spring, they say.

Meanwhile, we have been trying to continue the battle against the legacy of weed infestation left by our tenants.  Fortunately, we have a reliable (and free) source of heavy-duty black plastic and tyre dealers are always ready to bring out a van-load of scrap tyres, so gradually an increasing area of the field has been covered as we stake our claim to weed-free soil - eventually, we hope!

But the winter has not just been wet, it has also been windy - VERY windy sometimes - so that plastic and those tyres have been re-laid quite a number of times . . .

. . . and the polytunnel has not escaped either!  Dave had patched up the damaged plastic cover when we came back, and it survived OK until the worst winds of the last few months.  It didn't really owe us anything as it was the original one from 1999, but mid-winter is not the best time to replace a plastic cover (wet, windy, cold . . .) plus we had some winter salads growing happily in there and the stormy blasts would not do them any good.

So, once again, black plastic and tyres to the rescue!

It may not be a thing of beauty, but it does the job until we are able to fit a new cover on a calm, warm day in the Spring.

Even inside is not too dark, and it means that Dave has been able to get on with preparing the beds and planting more winter salad.

That white bed is covered with fleece on simple wire frames - an idea from Eliot Coleman which seems to work, keeping the worst of the cold or frost away.  More covers planned for some of the other beds, too.

The 'jungle' you can see on the right is Cape Gooseberry plants - still cropping in January! They have now been trimmed back and replanted in what we hope will be an easier place to manage them.  Hopefully another good crop in 2016!

There is still plenty more to do, both inside and especially in the field . . .

The Turning of the Year

New year, new plans, new hopes, new ideas . . .

 . . . and a new price list from Blackberry Lane!  Quite a few prices DOWN !

Glaser Tools in Switzerland usually publish their new prices about now, and in 2015 there was no change as world steel prices had levelled or even dropped a little.  This year, the price of quality spring steel (used for the tool blades) has apparently risen, so they have increased their prices to us.

However, over the last few months, the exchange rate between the UK Pound and the Swiss Franc has improved, so we have actually been able to offer REDUCED PRICES for almost the whole Glaser range.

You can find our 2016 Catalogue at http://www.blackberrylane.co.uk/PDFs/Cat1601.pdf and our 2016 Price List at http://www.blackberrylane.co.uk/PDFs/prices2016a1.pdf or you can download them from our website.

This may be a good opportunity to buy, as the exchange rate can easily change the other way, plus there may well be the usual rise in postage costs in late March or early April.

Glaser Tools have also introduced a new larger-size Aluminium Adjustable Rake, 96 cm wide with 26 teeth.  Sorry, no pictures yet, but it sounds like a larger version of the existing 74 cm/20 tooth and 55 cm/18 tooth ones which have been proving quietly popular since we started stocking them back in 2013.

They also have some new tools planned for 2016.  We are awaiting these with interest, and will let you know about them when they arrive.

SAALET Easy Sower

Well, here it is!

A low-cost option for seed sowing of most sizes of vegetable seeds - from Cabbages to French Beans!

It was back in 2002 that we first made contact with Helge Petersen, the inventor of the SAALET Easy Sower.  At that time, we were interested to try one out as we had read Eliot Coleman's comments about them in The New Organic Grower  and Four Season Harvest.

For whatever reason, that contact did not develop and so it was in 2014 that we started contact with Kenneth at Saalet again, this time with a view to importing the Easy Sower to sell in the UK . . .

. . . and now we have our first batch and have started selling them!

Looks like no-one else in the UK is selling them at the moment, though they have been sold by other merchants in the past.  We have them at £24.80 including UK postage, and you can buy them direct 'off the page' at our new SAALET Easy Sower page on the Blackberry Lane website.

Special Offer - Mini 4s and Mini 5s - ALL GONE!

Back in April, when we had an enormous rush for Soil Blockers (Thanks, Monty!), the manufacturers were hard pressed to keep us supplied with enough Mini 4s and Mini 5s to keep up with demand, and we were working day and night to get those orders out.

We survived and, as far as we know, everyone got their Soil Blockers OK.  And the orders keep on coming in, so perhaps all those earlier customers are telling their friends . . .

Well, here's a bonus for those of you who have NOT yet bought a Mini 4 or Mini 5 and would like to save some cash.

In the rush of deliveries from the manufacturers, the carriers got a little careless and a total of 10 blockers were damaged - seven Mini 4s and three Mini 5s.  The first picture shows you the worst one.  Definitely not usable!

But here is the same Mini 4 after a little 'surgery'.  As with any operation, there are a few scars, but we are pleased to say that the patient has made a full recovery and should be able to live a fully active life.

If you would like to buy one of these 'unbent' Soil Blockers, we are offering them at £10.00 including UK postage, and of course we will include the usual sets of both long and short Seed Pins, as we do with normal undamaged Blockers.

You won't be able to buy these off our website, so please just email us and we shall send you a PayPal invoice for £10.00.  (Or phone us and send a cheque or bank credit transfer.)

All gone now (19th Oct 2014)

. . . and the winner is . . .

'Stupice' (apparently pronounced 'stoo-peach-kay') , an early tomato from Eastern Europe.  This is the first tomato to (nearly) ripen this year, and the others are following.  We should have saleable quantities fairly soon.

How about the deeply ribbed 'Costoluto Genovese' . . .

and the incredible number of flowers on this truss of 'Millefleur'.  Looking forward to seeing this full of little yellow cherry tomatoes - apparently very tasty as well.

Meanwhile, one of our Chilli plants is producing, too!  Way ahead of all the others, and the Sweet Peppers haven't even started flowering yet!

Aubergines in flower now, so hopefully some fruit before too long,

and the first cucumbers are lengthening.

Watch out for this little fella - a tiny flower, soon to be followed by a miniature cucumber about an inch long.  Really crunchy and tasty.

The Monty Don Effect ! Sorry to Keep You Waiting . . .

Suddenly, soil blocking is being talked about!  Monty did an excellent job with his low-key presentation on BBC Gardeners World on 11th April, enough to give the nation's gardeners the idea.

Michael Ladbrooke invented the soil blockers many years ago, and we bought our first ones from him having searched high and low, before we had the internet.  We were impressed and, when we had the opportunity to start growing on a larger scale, soil blocking was the way to go for very many of our crops.  Just about the same time, Michael retired and passed the business on to Ladbrooke 98 Ltd, so we bought our Multi 12 from them.  Little did we realise . . .

. . . when we set up our 'Online Toolshop' in early 2005, it was primarily to make it a bit easier for other growers and gardeners to find the things we had such difficulty finding:-  Collinear Hoes, Wheelhoes and Oscillating Hoes from Glaser Engineering in Switzerland were the first, then the EarthWay Seeder in 2006 and Ladbrooke Soil Blockers in 2007.  A few more specialities have followed since then.

But back to the Soil Blockers!  We normally reckon to handle a few orders a week, but since April 11th the numbers have reached the hundreds and initially we felt like we were running as fast as we could and falling well behind.  Now we still have MANY orders to send out, but perhaps we are 'gaining on them' - we are processing more orders each day than are now coming in, though the BBC Gardeners World magazine is also out now and soil blocking is apparently featured in that as well, so the flow of orders may speed up again!

Soilblockers.com (aka Ladbrooke 98 Ltd) have been brilliant at sending us fresh stocks, and we are working our socks off to get these orders out - not much else has been going on in the Taylor household for the last 10 days!

But, if you are still waiting for your Soil Blocker order (or any other order from us), we would like to say SORRY FOR THE DELAY .  If your order is urgent for any reason, please get in touch and we will try to help.

Meanwhile, we will keep on processing those orders - keep 'em coming!

FeedBack on Soil Block Mixes, Please !

Calling all you keen Soil Block users out there . . .

We know you're there, probably just too busy getting all those blocks ready with this season's new plants - veggies, flowers or whatever - but can you spare a moment to share your experience of making soil blocks . . . PLEASE !  It will probably help LOTS of other gardeners.

Yes, we know that we give a recipe for mixing your own blocking mixes in our Soil Block Information Sheet, but many of you have probably taken a different route and either used a ready-made product from your local Garden Centre, or perhaps modified a ready-made mix by adding some loam, soil or garden compost.

If you have some good ideas which have worked for you, please email us or just add a comment below.  If we get enough feedback on this, we shall produce an extra information sheet to be sent to all future customers who buy Soil Blockers from us and also post a copy of it on our website.  We will be more than happy to quote contributors' names in the credits!

Without giving too much away, we understand that Soil Blocking may soon become even more popular as a certain well-known TV broadcaster seems likely to feature Soil Blockers in his weekly programme VERY SOON!