Our collective of growers have started planting, and seedlings will begin appearing outside the Staverton shop towards the end of the month. Yealmpton customers, meanwhile, have their own organic growers right on their doorstep.
Growing your own vegetables whether on an allotment or simply on a windowsill is a wonderfully satisfying thing. We’re still hoping that, once the new shop is finally completed at Staverton, we’ll be able to offer a much wider range of products to help make it easy and trouble-free.
In the meantime, we have plants, fruit trees and soft fruit bushes, along with compressed bricks of coir compost.
I’m not entirely sure what’s happening with compost regulation. As I understand it, the horticultural sector has a derogation until 2030, while we amateurs have had to go peat-free since 2024. The industry, including parts of the organic sector – says peat is irreplaceable, but its almost universal use is a relatively recent development. Quite how growers managed before they started digging it up wherever they could is anyone’s guess.
Peat is now a global industry, with much of it coming from Scandinavia. Alternatives abound, but the one that seems to offer the most potential is coconut fibre (coir). It provides good water retention and generally comes with added nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium). Better still, it’s sold dry in small, easy-to-handle compressed blocks. Just add water and mix.
A 5kg block (which makes around 80 litres of compost) costs £12.25. It’s the way to grow.
And if you’re old-school and want to do the whole thing from scratch, we also stock local Vital Seeds and, for something slightly more exotic, Italian Franchi seeds.