Hungry Gardener Cup Cakes

In the coffee shop today I brought one of your new cup cakes - beetroot, chocolate and sultana! After carefully cutting it into 4, I shared it with the Sharon, Norma and Gaye. They couldn't believe what it was but were pleasantly surprised with the taste - so moist and delicious. Which one next girls .... courgette and carrot?

Fairweathers pictures

We have now set up a flickr account to show off images from both the garden centre and the Learning Garden. Click on www.flickr.com/photos/fairweathersgardencentre/

Midsummer day madness

This Friday 19th June we are holding a celebration of midsummer by giving away money. Yes we are offering double reward card points on purchases that is equal to 10% off and there will be special offers on furniture and BBQ's. Along with this for a small sum there will be New forest hot Dogs for sale and if you are not a reward card holder then signing up will not only give you the extra discount but also a welcome gift pack and even a glass of Pimms.
Remember we are open from 9:00 til 5:30 only. See you then

Learning garden veg

With the Learning garden producing so much produce at this time we are selling off surpluses in the Garden Centre.
This week we have lettuce, broad beans and some cut flowers for sale.

Well stocked

Even if we say it ourselves the Garden centre is looking really great this week simply bursting with a great selection of plants ready to brighten up your gardens.
This is probably the best time to buy as the plants are fresh and offer great value for money.
If the long hot summer is on its way then this may be last time the place is so full of wonderful plants

Toona

In the middle of the garden centre there is a tree called a Toona sinensis, this always causes a stir with our customers with its attractive spring foliage.
Come and see it for you self, fortunately we even have a few to sell. It prefers a site in full sun and also likes a fertile well drained soil

May Bank holiday

It goes without saying that not all the bank holiday was good weather. Sunday has given us a frost, enough to turn the leaves on may of the plants, thank goodness we put all the tender stock under cover. The Basil however is destroyed.
Today, Monday is so cold it feels more like a march day certainly not conducive to buy bedding plants, oh well there is always next year.

Seed sowing

We have finally found a use for the old glasshouse in the garden centre. We are producing the young plants for the Learning Garden in it. If you come along you will see it set out with masss of trays of seeds and young plants growing on waiting for both the weather and the ground to be ready for planting out.
If you would like to see what are doing do ask a member of the team who would be happy to show you whats growing.

Stock, stock and more stock

It seems like spring has started, this morning we had 6 deliveries in an hour and half. Stock is just piling in, plants, compost, giftware and gardening equipment. Even if we say it ourselves we think we have a great range of gardening products available, we are not an out of town superstore but a proper garden centre.
Conme along and judge for yourself and let us know if we are missing some thing you feel we should have, but please do not ask for Gnomes as that is something we will draw a line at.

The week ahead

At long last it looks like a week when the weather may be on our side. The forast is to become quite a bit warmer and drier, maybe even double digit figures.
With a bit of sun on our backs we have have a bit more confidence in bringing in more stock to sell.
At the end of the week our Early spring leaflet gets distributed, so look out for some offers on exciting gardening products, but act fast as this is very much time limited.

The icy weather claims a victim

Poor Julian feel off his scooter yesterday and has broken his wrist. We wish him well but are in urgent need of some diggers. We need to get plot 4 dug in the learning garden soon so we need volunteer help as Julian will be out of action for 6 -8 weeks

Burglar plants

Security Gardening: Deter Burglars with Thorny Landscape
At some point after a home burglary, your neighborhood police officer will probably give you the "do and don'ts" of landscape security. Dense landscaping is an invitation for burglars, and houses that can't be seen from the street are at the highest risk for break-ins.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/287935/security_gardening_deter_burglars_with.html

Snow and trade

What a week, even here on the sunny south coast we have been struck down with snow.
Monday saw difficult weather conditions and we hardly saw a single customer all day, then on Tuesday it really hit and staff had difficulty in getting in to work. Even Patrick Fairweather had to serve in the coffee shop as staff were unable to drive in.
Oddly enough we have sold three sets of furniture this last week but hardly anybody has ventured out into the plant area.
On Tuesday admist the snow we had our first delivery of little seedling plants, what a shock for them. These little plants offer great value for money but only if you can keep the temperatures high enough to keep them alive and growing. We have seen the sales of these declining each year and it may be last time we supply these.

Bird Box Bonanza

Today we put all the bird boxes that were made by the visitors and children last year on our Wildlife day.
Everybody who provided us with their e-mail will receive a message of where the box was put along with images of its installation.
We will also keep everybody update with any activity that occurs in their box

Rest of the range

Finally we have a near full complement of seed potatoes in store. 46 varieties are now available, over the next week I will get descriptions up onto our website for you to have a look and make your decisions.
Within 24hrs of us putting these on display the really expert growers have been in choosing their special selections, taking time to ensure they have even tubers and similar number of eyes these chaps take this seriuosly.

Seeds and potatoes arrive

Our new season of seeds and potatoes are starting to come in. Last week we got the first of our seed potatoes but only a few of them as the main batch of them are stuck in Scotland waiting for the weather to clear so they can be transported down. As these come in artics the suppliers will not ship them if there is a risk of them freezing en-route and lest be honest last week was pretty chilly.
Once they have arrived we will inform you all on the blog. In the meantime I am updating the website with the details of all the varieties we are stocking this year. It will be about 47 varieties, probably one of the best selections of loose potatoes in Hampshire. Unless you know otherwise?

Rotting compost

It does not seem long since we started our compost heaps but the results are already looking good.
We have just turned the heaps over to get more air into them to aid the compost process and on turning we found not only a plentyful supply of worms but also some good compost at the bottom.
We have been putting all our spent waste from the garden and also from the coffee shop and the mixtures of products is producing some good stuff. When we have been adding the waste we have been giving it a sprinkling of Garrotta to speed things up as well.

Packing away Christmas

Today we have finally moved into the delights of packing away and clearing all the unsold Christmas stock. Earlier this week we recycled all our unsold Christmas trees and today we started to make way for the new seasons stock.
The centre looks really bare at the moment mainly due to the fact that none of our suppliers are back to work yet so no deliveries.
Does the whole of the Uk stop work over these two weeks ? leaving only shops and cafes open.
It does not seem that long ago when we only had Christmas and Boxing day off, but people expect to have an extended holiday over this period now. It makes it difficult for us as customers expectations have changed and expect us to have everything ready imediately after Christmas and for some people they want us to open every day except Christmas Day, how odd people view things today.
We wait in expectation of getting back to some form of normality next week, it will be interesting to see who of our suppliers are ready to get going and who have gone to the wall over the festive period.