Instant Vegetable Garden

Following the success of last year's vegetables supplied by Rocket Gardens (see my blog post "Plants by Post"), I leafed through the spring catalogue back in early April, looking for my next purchase.  When I reached the patio container garden, I left the catalogue open on my desk at that page, as a reminder to place my order.  If I had only turned the page over, I would have spotted a photo of my garden last year.  I had submitted to photo to Rocket Garden's Facebook page, as they had asked to see customer gardens.

I was completely unaware the photo was in the catalogue until I received an email from Rocket Gardens thanking me for the use of the photo.  As a thank you they were offering me a garden of my choice, a free wooden planter worth £30 plus two bags of potatoes worth £8 and free delivery.  Who was I to say no?  Thrilled didn't even begin to cover it!

As I had already decided on the patio container garden, that is the one I chose.  Priced at a very reasonable £36.99, it consisted of:

5 x rainbow chard
20 x wild rocket
12 x garden peas
6 x strawberries
10 x spinach
5 x tomatoes
4 x courgettes
30 x mixed lettuce (3 varieties)
10 x dwarf French beans
5 x runner beans
20 x mizuna (an Oriental salad leaf)

Partly due to the weather, lack of time to prepare and going on holiday, I finally arranged for my delivery to be made a couple of weeks ago.  The plants and wooden crate arrived 7pm on a Friday evening by courier.  As usual the plants were packed with care in a large cardboard box in layers of straw and more cardboard.  Each set of plants was clearly labelled and planting instructions were also included.  To be honest, you can't go wrong really.

I had a frantic Friday evening and then Saturday morning madly planting all of my new arrivals.  After a quick trip to the garden centre for canes and compost, I had a healthy looking, instant vegetable plot.  That's definitely my kind of gardening!

Two weeks on, the plants are all thriving, the peas are flowering and already have some pea pods and the strawberries are also fruiting.  I plan to cut my first lettuce tomorrow as they have really shot up over the last week.  I am really pleased with the wooden crate too, it makes a perfect home for the lettuces and looks quite attractive too.


What more can I say apart from thank you very much Rocket Gardens!

Plants By Post

Back in June, my husband gave me a gift voucher for a company called Rocket Gardens.  The voucher entitled me to a compact herb garden mini plant pack.  I didn't really know what it was all about, so just followed the instructions to redeem the voucher on their website and thought no more of it.

A couple of days later, I arrived home to find a cardboard box on the doorstep which said "Plant me, grow me, eat me" on the side.  There's nothing quite like coming home to a parcel, it's a bit like your birthday or Christmas, you can't wait to open it and see what's inside.  Quickly opening the box, I was met by a whole array of baby plants, all neatly  packed for transit.

As I carefully unpacked the plants, I could not believe the variety I had been sent.  I had expected some herbs and herbs I got, rosemary, chives, thyme, parsley, mint, sage, basil and marjoram to be precise.  Not only that, I got various types of lettuce, calabrese, cabbages and rainbow chard.  It was an absolute feast!  Well it would be when they had all grown.

I have to admit it did take a while to plant them all.  As there was far more than I was expecting, I had quite a job scouring the garden shed for pots.  The lettuces ended up sharing but I don't think they were bothered.  As well as the plants, which were all clearly labelled, there was also clear instructions for planting and care of the various plants.  You couldn't really go wrong.

I did wonder how well the plants would do, particularly with my tendency to forget to water for days on end in the summer.  The plants were really healthy though and all thrived, in spite of me.  The only problems I encountered were with the caterpillars which I have already mentioned in a previous blog entry.  Even now in the depths of winter, with a foot of snow recently, the herbs, cabbages and rainbow chard are all still flourishing in there pots on the patio.  The cabbages have made an amazing comeback having been stripped bare by the caterpillars.  Even the calabrese managed a small head despite having hardly any leaves.  I haven't had the heart to eat it!

Looking on Rocket Garden's website, www.rocketgardens.co.uk, you will see that they offer a whole range of plant packs suitable for the window box gardener to allotment gardeners.  All of the packs clearly show the number and variety of plants in the pack, as well as the space required for planting.

The pricing seems to me to be very reasonable for the number of plants and the quality.  Obviously it would be cheaper to by packets of seeds and grow your own from scratch but if you don't have the time or a greenhouse, Rocket Gardens offer the perfect solution.  I will certainly be using them again next year, so roll on the spring!