ICE planting seeds for their competition

As you may remember last week I was sent a load of lovely organic seeds from  The Organic Gardening Catalogue by the nice folk at Ice   Ice is a new, flexible customer reward programme which identifies sustainable products and services, from high-street retailers to small independent businesses, presents them to you in a one-stop shop and rewards you generously when you buy them via Ice.

Ice say on their website that

Our mission is to mitigate climate change via mass consumer purchase power. By changing small things we do and buy every day, together we can minimise harm to the environment, help mitigate climate change and preserve the ice caps.

Ice promotes sustainable living and keeping things organic, including encouraging more people to grow their own fruit and vegetables from home. As part of this ideal, Ice is running a ‘Grow Your Own’ competition alongside The Organic Gardening Catalogue (one of its partners) to encourage home grown, sustainable produce and they asked me if I would take part :) hence the collection of lovely seeds they have sent me

I have been a long time user of organic seeds from The Organic Gardening Catalogue so was delighted to be asked to join in with this competition. 

So tonight I sowed the  seeds (Beetroot, Pak Choi, Salad leaves, Carrots, Radish, Rocket) and in the next few weeks will be giving regular updates on their progress as well as hints and tips on how to sow them and (hopefully) how well they grow. I may even provide you with some recipe hints for using the crops :-) 

I decided to use these troughs to grow my seeds in as I can keep them seperated from all the other planting I have done.

I used Fertile Fibre Multipurpose growing medium - peat free, coir based. Other peat free growing media is available - please do NOT use peat based ones!

Fill the container to within an inch or so of the top

Don't plant too many seeds!

Seeds on the surface

Cover with a light sprinkling of growing medium - a good rule of thumb is to use about  the same thickness of growing medium as the size of the seed

make sure you label what you have sown in the container and also when you sowed it!

Stand the containers in a tray of water to get them well wetted and be careful about watering from the top until the seedlings are well grown, as otherwise you risk washing away the seedlings if you water from the top. Watering by standing in a tray of water is safer.

 So, seedlings planted and I will keep you all updated as to how they progress.

Wordless Wednesday - RHS Hampton Court images

 

 

  

 

RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 1 - a hot day and a Gold medal winning garden

Yesterday at an unearthly hour of the morning I set off to Hampton Court, squinting in the unaccustomed sunshine. 

Our train journey took a shade over 4 hours with various changes but all went smoothly

and by 11am we were walking over the bridge from the Hampton Court railway station

pausing on the bridge to admire  to admire the Royal Palace in the distance as we walked along the River Thames

 

and to admire it some more as we walked past it. 

We arrived at the Show at about 11.30 am. When we got inside the RHS show ground we entered the Inspire zone and were immediately greeted by merry Ecover elves handing out free samples and showing off their electric car. Then we were straight (literally) into the first of the Conceptual Gardens.

I will write about the gardens in more detail in another post but let us just say this first garden set a very high standard for the others to follow!

I went on Press Day, so of course a lot of designers were being interviewed, standing by their creations.

 

and there were lots of TV crews and photographers wandering around filming and taking photos.

I had an appointment at noon at The Ecover Garden so we went straight there and were so impressed by what we saw. The planting scheme was so vibrant and had a cottage garden, insect attracting feel to it whilst also managing to be very fresh and modern looking.

 

Movement and colour of water is represented by the planting scheme.

 My appointment was for a one-to-one chat with the designer of The Ecover Garden, Matthew Childs. I was so excited to be talking to him, especially as he recognised my name from our Tweet exchanges

Discussing the inspiration for the garden

Ecover bottle handle two way bench, highlighting the recycled and plant based plastics used by Ecover for their products.

Blue plastic strips are made from recycled plastic and linking in the Ecover logo to the garden

According to Matthew, the planting mainly echoed the colours of the Ecover brand, blue, vibrant lime green and white, which also were the blues, greens and whites of moving water. This was the theme of the garden "Water is Life".

However there were also "coastal cliffs" of earthy coloured lime plaster walls and blue recycled plastic sculptures.

Matthew is using sustainable materials such as recycled plastic, lime render and mulched beds to reduce water loss. Also the garden is packed with an abundance of flowers that are particularly bee friendly - as we all know how important they are for us to thrive.

There was a  a beautiful moving water feature with streams of water cascading down  from the Toilet Cleaner fountain into a series of pools. In the background is the Bottle Top lamp (yes it lights up at night, apparently)

The garden appeared astonishingly well established, especially the lichen covered trees which  looked as if they had been there forever with the garden designed around them. ( the site was actually totally flat before the build up started)

Matthew said that he  wanted people to be talking and thinking about the use of recycled plastic in the garden. He also wanted them to be inspired to think about sustainable materials and appreciate the brands and manufacturers who use them.

My enjoyable discussion finally came to an end, as The Countess of Wessex wanted to talk to Matthew about his wonderful garden.

so I said thank you and goodbye.

Not surprisingly the RHS judges awarded Gold and Best in Show to The Ecover Garden

Well deserved in my opinion, I honestly thought it was the best garden I saw at the Show.


More about the Show tomorrow!

Today, hopefully I will be

 

Looking at a lot of these

And visiting somewhere with quite a lot of these (but not with my name on :-) )

Think of me today while I visit RHS Hampton Court Flower show  :)

Message on my bottle

The first parcel which arrived yesterday was a very special bottle of washing up liquid from Ecover UK :-) Can you see why it is special?

Thank you Lauren from Ecover HQ, I have used a bit already and it smells lovely :-)


As you may remember, I am off to Hampton Court Flower Show sometime this week, thanks to some tickets given to me by Ecover UK. I can't wait to see The Ecover Garden and meet designer Matthew Childs :-) I have spent a very hot couple of hours online today making sure I have all the trains worked out; yesterday we went over to Malvern and I gave my friend Maria her tickets just in case we get separated - I don't want for her to not be able to get on the train!

I am a bit concerned about the heat we are expecting this week  - travelling for 4 hours each way on trains and underground in this heat is not something I am looking forward to, but it is such an adventure to be going somewhere so exciting that I am sure I will manage :-)