After a week away from the farm, I can suddenly notice just how rapidly everything is growing. I've come back to towering crops, new flowers buzzing with pollinators, and the first seed harvests underway! Time feels like it moves differently when working so closely with the natural world, and it's a true pleasure to return and reacquaint myself with each crop, noticing what has grown, where the newly emerged flowers are, which plants are favoured by which pollinators, and where precious seed is already setting.

Here's a quick peak into the tunnels right now...

We've got a 3 bay multispan tunnel out in the field, which this season has around 40 seed crops, as well as other herbs and flowers for beneficial insects. Each bay is separated with doors and mesh, allowing us to isolate crops that might cross. Needless to say, this whole area of our growing space is an incredible sensory experience, full of flowering scents, colour and buzzing pollinators.

First seed harvests of the season

The moment when seed crops start to be processed and return to our office is a momentous and exciting moment in the growing year. It's really rewarding to witness the completion of a full life cycle for each and every plant that we grow. Over the last two weeks we have begun to harvest a few of the earlier seed crops, including swede, kizuna, Evergreen onions, mizuna and Red Sails Iceland poppies. The seed harvesting process varies crop by crop, but there is always a sequence of harvesting, drying, threshing, screening and winnowing involved to ensure the end seed is clean, dry and viable.

And... Time for a Second Spring!

The annual moment has arrived where we release our much loved 'Second Spring' seed collection. Now is the perfect time to prepare your seed sowings for the second half of this year, and we've put together our favourite selection of varieties for you to sow now, and harvest throughout the winter months.

This year the collection includes a delicious array of leafy greens, including spinach, winter salad and spicy brassicas, as well as spring onions and turnips, all sure to keep your harvests abundant and your plates nourishing as the days draw in.

Now that we have passed the summer solstice, it's also the ideal time to sow chicory. Chicory is prone to bolting in longer daylengths, so it's important to sow them after the peak of summer has passed. We have a delicious and diverse range to try in our seed shop.

I hope you all enjoyed the summer solstice, and are finding time to bask in the abundance of the land right now. With these long and especially sunny days we are having, it's important to keep an eye on your crops and potentially provide some extra water. Doing this in the early morning is best, so that as much moisture as possible can be taken up by the plants, and it's much more efficient as less will be evaporated straight off.

Take care and enjoy!

Izzy and the rest of the Vital Seeds team