How to use this Page

Here’s our recommendation of the 10 best vegetables which you and your children can grow from seed. We’ve chosen them for their variety in colour, flavour, shape and seasonality. This selection of vegetable seeds will teach your children about how a seed germinates, the conditions that they need to grow into plants and  how to harvest the different parts of the plants for food.

1) CHRISSIE CRESS
You can’t beat cress for a first time growing and eating experience.
Sow: Any time of the year, on tissue, cotton wool or compost on a windowsill
Growing: Make sure the seeds are kept moist.
Harvest: 1 week after sowing
Eat: Be ready to share this new mind-blowing flavour experience with your children, homegrown cress is hot and peppery and can be a bit of a shock. Our favourite is to mix it in an egg or cheese sandwich.

2) MINGO MUNGBEAN
Sow: Any time of the year in a jam jar
Growing: Soak the beans for 12 hours then rinse morning and night, draining well.
Harvest: The bean sprouts will be ready to eat in 5 days.
Eat: Crunchy bean sprouts can be added to salads or tossed into stir fries. You can sprout other beans and seeds like chick peas and lentils learn more

3) BRUNO BROADBEAN
Sow: Late Autumn or Feb/March, you can start them in news-paper pots then plant them in the ground.
Grow: Blackflies love the tender top leaves, when there are some flowers on the stem nip out the top, before they infest.
Harvest: Large pods, 10 weeks later
Eat: Top leaves are eaten like greens, small pods can be eaten whole or pop the beans raw from the pods. Also delicious in fritters, or as a paste on toast.

4) PC PEA POD
Sow: In a seed tray in Spring or direct in ground in May and June
Growing: Peas need twigs to grow up, clinging to them with their tendrils.
Harvest: Mange-tout peas are great for kids as they eat the whole pod often straight from the plant. Round peas need to be left until the pods swell and then popped from the pods.
Eat: Salads, stir fries, boiled with a sprig of mint….so many ways.

5) BABS BEETROOT
Sow: From Spring through to Summer, sow every couple of weeks so you have a supply of tiny beetroots fresh from the garden.
Growing: Sow direct in the ground well spread out.
Harvest: About 60-90 days later you should find a golf ball sized root.
Eat: Wash the root and leaves, cook in boiling water. Tiny beets take 10mins, older woodier beets 30mins at least. They’ll stain everything pinky purple so be warned. Delicious in a salad with roasted nuts.

6) CARLA CARROT
Sow: April, May in sandy soil. They are going to around 10 weeks to be ready.
Growing: Plant near onions and chives or in raised pots to prevent carrot fly.
Harvest: After about 10 weeks you should be able to pull a small carrot from the ground.
Eat: Endlessly useful, carrot sticks for picnics, lunches and snacks, grated to add sweetness and colour to salads and soups.

7) RUDI RADISH
Sow: 1cm deep direct in ground in rows. From April-May then August-September.
Growing: Keep moist
Harvest: Pull when small and crisp
Eat: Normally not cooked but ideal for dips and snacks.

8) RIO ROCKET
Sow: Under a cloche or on a windowsill from February onwards, direct in the garden from mid-March-May then July-September
Growing: If you have a greenhouse you can get a great crop throughout the Winter, if not grow it on your windowsill for a few leaves that will add a fresh garnish to Winter dishes.
Harvest:The ultimate cut and come again crop, pinch off the leaves and more appear. When it goes to seed eat the flowers.
Eat: Salads, sprinkle over pizzas or chop into a paste for pasta.

9) SANGHITA SPRING ONION
Sow: Straight into ground. Best in a row as looks like grass to start with.
Grow: Keep well watered and keep sowing every month.
Harvest: Thin rows by pulling the tiny onions and leave the rest to grow bigger.
Eat: Raw or cooked onions add a tongue tingling taste to salads, stir fries or chop and stir into potatoes or other root vegetables for added zing.

10) DESIREE POTATO
Sow: Potatoes are not grown from seed but from an old potato (seed potato).
Grow: Plant 3-4 seed potatoes in 30cm of compost in an old compost bag that is rolled down and has drainage holes pierced in it. When green shoots appear at the top add more compost to the top unrolling the bag up to 60cm
Harvest: Wait  until the bag top is covered with leaves and perhaps a flower. Tip up the bag and search the compost for new potatoes. See who gets the biggest and the smallest.
Eat: Boiled, mashed, fried, roasted, always cooked. Try this ‘Potato Pizza’ recipe.

Germination: is the process of a seed bursting open and sprouting into a plant. Most seeds take warmth as a sign to begin germinating. When you feel warm sun on your skin, think of your seeds. Whether they are in pots on windowsills or in the ground outside, they will be feeling the warmth too. Here’s Rudi Radishes tips on germinating indoors and outdoors…

Paper pots ready to plant the broad beans

Germinating indoors:
1. Use a propagator will keep the soil warm and moist, the perfect conditions for germinating seeds into seedlings.
2. Homemade propagator, from upcycled packaging.
3. Paperpots are cheap and easy to make.

Home-made cloche's

Germinating outdoors:
1. Before you plant your seeds, warm the soil by laying black polythene over the area you are planning to plant.
2. When you plant your seeds, keep them warm and protected from hungry bugs by making a cloche or a mini-greenhouse. Here’s how to upcycle a plastic bottle into a mini-greenhouse.

Radishes take 8-10 weeks bo grow ready to eat

Happy growing!

Rudi Radish

We have started collecting news items that interest us from the internet. There are links to sustainability ideas, seasonal growing and cooking. This is this weeks collection….subscribe to be reminded each time it comes out.

Let us know what you think at [email protected]

Any idea when courgettes come into season? How about cucumbers? No? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Research shows that most people aren’t sure when most British fruit and vegetables are in season which is a real shame as it means they’re missing out on when they’re at their absolute best.

While it’s easy to enjoy blueberries with your breakfast in winter, being accustomed to buying whatever we want, whenever we want it means we are increasingly becoming disconnected from our food and its relationship with nature. Eating with the seasons means getting back in touch with nature’s rhythms and eating the right thing at the right time. What could be more delicious than a crisp salad when it’s hot and sunny a wholesome stew when it’s cold? Ask any chef and they’ll tell you that fruit and veg are at their best when they’ve just been picked, so why settle for sickly looking strawberries in Winter or unappetising asparagus in Autumn?

Reasons to eat seasonably:

1. Fruit and veg are at their freshest and tastiest when they are first picked

2. Eating seasonably is a great way of eating more sustainably

Growing fruit and veg in season requires lower levels of artificial inputs like heating, lighting, pesticides and fertilisers than at other times of the year and so has a lower environmental impact.

3. Grocery bills are cheaper due in part by reduced transportation and production costs for growers. Everybody wins!

Get the whole family involved! Try cooking and eating seasonably to experience the joy of eating fruit and vegetables at their peak of perfection: fresher, tastier, better value and better for the environment. For more info check out our ‘Eat the Seasons’ page, and also our recipes page.

Our friends at Eat Seasonably also have a great interactive calendar that will keep you in the know all year through, click here to view.

Secret Seed Society, child-friendly recipes and tips for growing and cooking with kids for a healthier, happier future.

Diarmuid Gavin loves to get digging with his daughter Eppie when he returns to Ireland but now when she drops into bed exhausted by the gardening she can read all about Seed City and dream about those mischievous vegie-beings.

Diarmuid was keen to pinch the cabbage crown from Shena when they met at the Edible Garden Show.

Or did he want the Carrot hat?

He certainly loved Secret Seed Society’s fun ideas for engaging children and gave us a front page promotion in The Mirror!

The first day Secret Seed Society could be found promoting organic gardening to children whilst the grown-ups signed up at The Soil Association.

Do you know what Chrissie Cress and Peter Parsnip like to play? well they certainly got everyone playing at the show. Take a look here.

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, nature is bursting into life again and so must you. Yes, that’s right. It is now time for us to start thinking about climbing out of hibernation and springing back into action in the garden. This may sound easier said than done but there could never be a better time for taking such steps. And for those of you who aren’t quite ready to part with your winter warmers then perhaps looking at the possibilities available with indoor gardening may be the perfect way to get you going. Not only this, it is also a brilliant way to introduce children to gardening and the wonders of nature.

In helping you and your family get into the spirit of gardening again, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his team of expert gardeners have organised an event next weekend on Saturday 26th March 2011 at River Cottage in Dorset. The ‘Get Growing in Spring’ Festival is intended to provide all the latest tips and advice on how easy it can be to grow your own fruit and vegetables, both indoors and outdoors, and also the benefits of becoming more green fingered.

Most importantly, we at Secret Seed Society will be making an appearance accompanied by our ‘Seed City Museum’ where the children will be able to create their own famous vegetable beings and hang them up in the Gallery along the likes of Julius Caesar Salad, Tina Turnip, Jamie Olive and Napoli-onion! The Secret Seed Society story and seed packs will also be available on the day to show just how much fun it can be for children to grow their own fruit and vegetables. It is a wonderful day out that is enjoyable for all the family. We look forward to seeing you there!

Important Event Information

When?

Saturday 26th March 2011

Where?

River Cottage HQ, Park Farm, Trinity Hill Road, Axminster, EX13 8TB

Time?

10:30am – 4:00pm

Admission Charges?

£14.50 (Children under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult and do NOT require a ticket)

Yesterday, the sun actually felt warm. This means the soil in your pots and garden will be getting some energy from the sun to get warm. It is important for the soil to be warm before you plant your seeds as seeds are a little like us in that they need warmth and care to grow well.

If you want to help the soil gather the sun’s energy more quickly you can do a couple of things. Firstly if you have some black polythene you can lay this on the soil and it will gather more of the sun’s energy and put it into the soil. Secondly if you have some clear polythene or a clear squash bottle you can make a little tent or cloche. This acts like a mini-greenhouse and captures the heat of the sun and prevents the soil losing heat at night.

A smart way to start is with a few seeds on the windowsill so that they are ready to plant out later in the month. A very good and easy seed to grow like this is Broad Beans. We roll up little tubes of newspaper and fill them with warm compost and put one bean in each tube. As the bean grows the newspaper disintegrates and we can plant the whole thing into the ground without disturbing the roots.

Another good thing to get growing now is radish. In the picture above you can see some of our finest from last year! And don’t forget if you want to become friendly with radish you might want to start by reading the story of Rudi Radish in Seed City! The pack comes with organic seeds, growing instructions and kit.

Happy growing!

Following a recipe is certainly a worthwhile skill but children need the freedom to experiment with tastes and to learn how to use available foods to create tasty dishes and reduce food waste.

We believe the home is the perfect environment for kids to learn about cooking. Sometimes they may follow a recipe but for young children this is very restricting and reduces the fun of trying different taste combinations, and seeing the effect of different cooking methods. Secret Seed Society promotes growing and cooking food for the very young. We have designed recipes that are highly open ended for a cooking system we call ‘Creative Cookery’.

By working with your children they become aware of the different tastes and nutritional values of a variety of foods. Creating a meal with them from fresh produce, whether home-grown or bought, stretches the household budget and learning to use what is available in that season reduces the carbon ‘food print’.

Earlier in the office Shena Cooper (our seedy founder) was telling us “Last week I was at a meeting talking to a guy whose son had grown a single runner bean. Keen to support his interest in growing the bean was carved and shared between the whole family so they could all get a taste”. Brilliant but such is ‘grow-your-own’ and this highlights one of the main problems for veg growers. The first tasty courgette savoured by the whole family is soon followed by tons of courgette and no-one can bear the sight any more. Feast or famine that is the grow-your-own way but there is always someone to share your glut with.

Secret Seed Society wants to show young gardeners how to use the single bean or the tons of courgette to make healthy and tasty food. Their recipes guide them to make their own signature dish using spices and ingredients that their culture and diet allow.

The reasoning behind ‘Creative Cookery’ is not entirely to do with availability. The greatest chefs don’t follow a recipe, they concoct, devise, and experiment. Young children are the most able to do this, their thought processes are not restricted by rights and wrongs, weights and measures and fear of getting it wrong. They are eager to try things out. In Britain today there are more types of fruit, vegetable, spices and seasonings available than ever before. No doubt there will be some inedible dishes produced and we all ‘Love Food Hate Waste‘ but children will learn from these experiences. Enjoyment of food is about taste blends, texture, combinations and cooking techniques.

The Seed City tales from Secret Seed Society familiarise children with a range of vegetable characters who have lots of exciting adventures. Reading the books, growing the seeds, which are included in each pack, and then cooking them into a tasty meal encourages them to have a positive outlook towards their 5 a day. Secret Seed Society works towards engaging children in an active and healthy life-style which will ensure they have the best chance of avoiding diabetes and heart disease in later life, sustainable living for the individual and society.

Secret Seed Society encourages every-one to have fun learning to use food that is seasonal, local and available and often home grown and cooked up by the youngest member of the household (with a bit of help of course)!