Posts by Emma Emmerson
Wildflower plants in stock
It was a huge challenge to source wildflower plants during 2020 and 2021 as nurseries ceased propagation due to the “work from home” instructions of the lockdowns. We are delighted that production is now back to something resembling normality and we are able to offer a good range of wild flowers for planting out now.
Our current selection of wildflower plants:
Wild Carrot (Daucus carota)
Cornflower (Centuarea cyanus)
Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)
Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum)
Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum)
Water Avens (Geum rivale)
Ox-eye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare)
Forget-Me-Not (Myosotis arvensis)
Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum)
Oxlip (Primula elatior)
Cowslip (Primula veris)
Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris)
Small Scabious (Scabiosa columbaria)
Red campion (Silene dioica)
White Campion (Silene latifolia)
Betony (Stachys offininalis)
These are all £2.99 each, or any 4 wildflowers for £10.
Wildflower seeds
In addition we stock a good range of wild flower seeds of individual species, as well as some wildflower mixes. Get going with one of our windowsill propagators to get seeds off to a good start. Use John Innes specialist seed compost, or the Dalefoot Seed Compost (which is peat free) for all your seed sowing.
For sowing “in-situ” we stock the Empathy Mini Meadow Mixes, which have a wide variety of British native flowers, all collected from British seed stock, and these have the added benefit of having mycorrhizal fungus (Rootgrow) added to the seed mix for good establishment.
Now is a good time for sowing many varieties of seeds, and is also a good time for planting, as the soil is warming up and the daylight hours are getting longer. We have a good range of propagators, seed trays, garden sieves, seed cells, Rootrainers, and everything else you need to get your seed sowing off to a good start.
Look Forward to Spring
Many people see the first of March as the start of spring and it certainly feels like that here at Woodside, with the sun out, the birds singing and lots of new stock arriving.
Shrubs
We have had deliveries of fresh plants in, so we now have a good range of shrubs, including:Forsythia Lynwood & Weekend
Hypericum Hidcote
Cistus Sunset, corbariensis, Sunset and purpureus
Mahonia Winter Sun,
Hebe Baby marie, Pagei & buxifolia nana
Physocarpus Diablo
Potentillas (bush varieties)
Spiraeas
Osmanthus burkwoodii & delaveyi
Genista Porlock
Viburnam Eve Price & davidii
Syringa (Lilac)
….and much more
Herbaceous Plants
Herbaceous plants are beginning to start to emerge from their winter dormancy, and highlights this week are Pulmonarias, Hellebores and Epimediums.
Our popular range of rockery plants is back at £4.99 each or 3 for £15, and there is plenty in flower and looking good just now. Look our for Saxifrage, Thrift, Arabis, Sedums, hardy Violas and Aubretia.
Propagation Corner
Our shop is fully stocked with a full range of seeds, grass seed, garden tools, string, fertilisers, garden treatments and wild bird food. Our “Propagation Corner” is filling up with seed trays, Rootrainers, compost disks (known to old-school gardeners as Jiffy 7’s), grow tunnels, and tunnel hoops. NEW this year are electric propagators to get you off to an early start this spring – we have two designs which are both suitable for sitting on a windowsill, and are sensibly priced at £34.99 and £44.99.
Buckets of pelleted Chicken Manure are also now available – £13.99 for 10kg or 2 buckets for £25. This is a great fertiliser for all round use in the garden, and is recommended for feeding bamboos, box plants and the vegetable plot.
Our Dalefoot Wool Compost is now here, and we offer their full range (apart from the Wool Ericaceous Compost which has been hit by production problems). These composts offer a very good alternative to conventional peat-based compost, and are made without any peat, using natural waste products from the Cumbian sheep farming industry.
Bird Tables
New in stock is a range of attractive birdtables. We have been getting asked for these, so now we have them! Choose from slate roofed styles or a timber roof. Don’t forget stabilising pegs to secure them into the ground and prevent toppling in the strong winds.
Also another NEW item this year is a Colander Trug. This is a very cleverly designed plastic trug with drainage holes at one end, so you can put your dirty veg in straight from the ground, and then rise off and drain the water away. We saw these at a trade show last year, and being a keen vegetable grower myself I thought they looked handy.
More for your Vegetable Garden
The weather continues to be discouraging for the vegetable garden, but to give you something to look forward here’s a taster of what we have in stock just now ready for spring:
Seed Potatoes
An increased range of varieties are ready now, for chitting and planting out in March/April
First Earlies – Caledonian Pearl, Epicure, Pentland Javelin, Rocket, Duke of York, Sharpes Express, Organic Colleen
Second Earlies – Carlingford, Charlotte, Estima, Harry, Maris Peer, Nadine, Nicola, Sarpo Una, Lucera, Wilja
Main Crop – Caledonian Rose, Cara, King Edward, Pink Fir Apple, Organic Sarpo Mira, Salad Blue, Mayan Rose, Blue Danube, Allouette
By my reckoning that makes 27 different varieties to choose from!!
Onions and Shallots
We have the following varieties:
Onions – Stuttgarter Giant, Centurion, Hercules, Snowball, Sturon, Red Panther, Red Baron, Karmen
Shallots – Biztro, Golden Gourmet, Mikor, Red Sun, Yellow Moon, Mehnir
These are all suitable for planting outside now. Read our guide to planting onions here.
Vegetable Garden pre-packs
Now is a good time to plant all sorts of vegetable tubers and roots, and we have the following available now:
Rhubarb Red Champagne and Rhubarb Valentine
Jerusalem Artichoke
Globe Artichoke
Asparagus Pacific Purple
Horseradish
Vegetable and Green Manure Seeds
We now have a full range of vegetable seeds and green manure seeds for sowing either in seed trays, or directly into the ground, depending on the variety. Our range includes;
10 different varieties of Green manure, plus 2 mixes, – Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Crimson Clover, Field Beans, Grazing Rye, Phacelia (highly recommended for bees) Mustard, Winter Tares, Trefoil, and White Clover.
A great range of vegetable seeds, including Aubergines, 6 different varieties of beetroot, Leaf beet (Chard), Brocolli, Brussels Sprouts, 14 different varieties of Cabbage, 11 different varieties of Carrots, Cauliflower, Courgettes, Cucumbers, Kale, 12 different varieties of Lettuce, Onions (including Spring Onions), Parsnips, 11 different varieties of Peppers, Radish, Salad Leaf, 22 varieties of Tomato, French Beans, Runner Beans, Broad Beans, and Peas.
Hopefully there is something to tempt you there!
Compost and Gardening Accessories
It’s been a very hectic lately with boxes and boxes of deliveries coming in, we now have our full range of fertilisers and garden treatments now in stock. We are pleased to be stocking a wider range of “Grazers” products this year, which are an organic, harmless option to help reduce damage to plants caused by deer, pigeons, rabbits, slugs and snails, and caterpillars. We also have a new range of Growing Success “Safer Gardening” organic products to help solve garden pest and disease problems – Fungus Stop, Bug Stop and Rose Guard. Our range of slug and snail controls are all organic.
We have a full range of weedkillers, including glyphosate free options, and well as a new range of lawn care products, including grass seed, lawn weed-killer and feed, weed and mosskillers.
Most of our compost is now in stock (please bear with us while we build our replacement compost area) with the full Dalefoot range of Wool Compost arriving. Unfortunately they are unable to produce any Ericaceous compost again this year, but we do have the Westland Ericaceous Peat based version available.
Add the ‘Wow’ Factor to your Garden
We’ve just returned from a trip to Europe’s biggest antiques fair at Newark where we were rubbing shoulders with the film crew of BBC’s Bargain Hunt.
We managed to source some vintage and unusual items for you to buy from our garden centre. Our very own “Star Buy” is undoubtedly the carved kingfisher perched on a log which we bought off the very first stall we came to. This probably dates from the 1950’s and could well be a one-off carving for a commission. It is much bigger than it looks from the photo, standing 3ft tall, so would make a real “wow” factor statement in the garden.
Vintage Items
Other purchases we made include a rare French greenhouse watering can, vintage Chinese rice/well buckets and an unusual French grain measuring bucket. The buckets could all be used for various purposes; such as holding magazines or kindling, for standing a pot plant in or just as a decorative item for the house.
For the garden we picked up a beautiful pair of vintage roosters, standing over 2 ft tall, a very disgruntled looking vintage bulldog and a small cast iron pump. An old Indian laundry trough we sourced would be great as a water feature or small pond. The pair of vintage French bistro chairs, and two wall sconces in the form of an oriental looking ladies face are also lovely. Look out too for vintage tattie baskets and plant labels.
Modern and Stunning
We also picked up some other items that are modern, but gorgeous, such as a stunning copper bowl with an aged verdigris finish which Stephen is already imagining as a cascading water feature, and a beautiful finial roof tile with a decorative hawk, which could be mounted in the garden as a feature.
I’ve taken some photos on my mobile (below) but do come in and see them for real, as my photography skills and phone are both limited in their abilities!
Hopefully you can come in and see them, just ask and I’ll show you around our latest purchases.
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Oven Ready Freezer Meals Range Expanded
We are now preparing a larger range of our own oven ready freezer meals. We are still offering our vegetarian range of meals (Mushroom Stroganoff, Puy Lentil Bolognese and Butternut Squash & Chick Pea Tagine) and our best selling Posh Fish Pie, and have now added the following new meals:
Beef Lasagne
Cottage Pie
Fruity Chicken Curry (GF)
Lemon & Ginger Chicken (GF)
Shepherd’s Pie
These can all be cooked in the oven from frozen, or can be defrosted before cooking. Our meals are made from fresh ingredients rather than using pre-prepared sauces, so are packed full of real flavours. Some of you found our previously bought-in meals a bit salty, so making our own meals means that we can reduce these salt levels and enjoy the great taste of the food.
Desserts
To complete your meal we also have Berry Meringue Roulade (defrost and serve) as well as Toffee Apple Crumble and Salted Caramel Brioche Bread and Butter Pudding – both of which require oven cooking.
All our freezer meals, sweet and savoury, are useful to have in the freezer for those days when you can’t be bothered to cook, or are faced with an empty fridge!
Game
We have replenished our supply of whole frozen pheasant and whole frozen wild mallard which are a useful back-up to have in the freezer. As the shooting season is now drawing to a close these will probably be the last we get until November. However, as soon as we have a bit of freezer space available we will be offering local venison again as this proved to be very popular.
Grocery
We’ve also freshened up our grocery shelves with some delicious new products which includes: Borderfields rapeseed oil, gluten-free hollandaise, horseradish or dill & mustard sauces, vegan mayonnaise, flavoured vinegars, roasted red peppers, preserved lemons, stuffed vine leaves, beetroot ketchup, avocado and lemon mayo and more…. We also still stock our best selling giant naan breads as well as curry sauces, and of course we can’t forget our wonderful free-range organic eggs from nearby Sandystones Farm.
A regular highlight is the arrival of fresh bread on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We are now getting in Toasted Sunflower and Pumpkin Seed Sourdough as well as Plain Sourdough, and we also have slices of Focaccia delivered fresh each Saturday. Customers are beginning to place regular orders so that they don’t miss out – if you want to order bread on a regular or just on a one-off basis just call on 01835 830315. If you have any special orders for get-togethers or larger family meals just give us a couple of days notice so we can order in for you. The large focaccias topped with chilli peppers and bacon are highly recommended!!
Summer Flowering Bulbs
Summer flowering bulbs are new in stock for this year. These are an extensive range of bulbs for planting in spring for flowering this summer.
While it’s still too early to plant most of these outdoors just yet, you can still plan ahead and store bulbs in a cool but frost free dry place until you’re ready. Of course if you have a heated greenhouse or conservatory you can get a bit of a head-start and get potting up sooner rather than later.
Our Gladioli varieties are:
Paloma Blanca – pure white with ruffled edges
Seashore – purple with a yellow throat
Sunshine – cheery yellow with an orange flame
Michelle – a short stemmed variety, deep orange with a yellow throat
Pescara – a short stemmed variety with rich ruby red blooms
Atom – a hardy variety, orange-red with a white stripe
Fiona – a hardy variety with white flowers
Nymph – a hardy variety, white with a red lip – very pretty
Vulcano – a hardy variety, pink with paler throat
Our Dahlia varieties are:
Big Hailstone – white
Edinburgh – wine red-purple with white tips – very pretty
Night Queen – deep rich red
Onesta – bright pink waterlily flower
Penny Lane – pale apricot with darker orange stripe
Fire & Ice – white with red stripe
Night Butterfly – striking deep maroon outer petals with paler inner petals
Sun & Ice – yellow and white two-tone flowers
Totally Tangerine – pinkish orange
Bishop of Canterbury – bronze leaf with dark pink flowers
Bishop of Leicester – bronze leaf with sugar pink flowers
Bishop of Llandaff – very popular bronze leaf variety with bright red flowers
Bishop of York – bronze leaf with rich gold flowers
Other Summer Flowering Bulbs now available:
Convallairia majalis rosea – pink Lily of the Valley
Convallaria majalis – white Lily of the Valley
Cyclamen hederifolium – autumn flowering hardy cyclamen
Agapanthus Blue – popular South African lily
Nerine bowdenii – stunning pink summer/autumn lily type flowers
Lily Eyeliner – white with a fine dark purple edge
Lily Forever Linda – yellow/ orange
Lily Lake Carey – pink
Freesia – mixed colours
Galtonia candicans – white
Paeony Sarah Berhardt – soft pink double flowers
Crocosmia Lucifer – flame red flowers
We also have peat-free bulb compost for planting in pots and for improving garden soil.
Onions, shallots and potato sets now in stock
Onion sets and shallots should be planted as soon as the ground becomes workable in late winter or early spring, and we have plenty of varieties in stock now for you to choose from. You may remember last year that we couldn’t get enough to satisfy demand – hopefully that won’t be a problem this season and there will be enough to go round.
Onion Sets
Centurion – one of the earliest to mature and has excellent yields.
Hercules – a mid-season variety, slow to bolt and excellent to store.
Karmen – a bright red variety with good storages
Pink Panther – a pink French onion suitable for early plantings. High yields and good storage.
Red Baron – a popular red skinned variety with good sharp flavour for salads
Snowball – probably the best white variety with a mild flavour. Excellent for pickling.
Sturon – a best selling mid-season variety with reliable yields and stores well.
Stuttgarter Giant – another popular variety with golden skin and good yields.
Shallot Sets
Biztro – a slightly spicy flavour
Golden Gourmet – our best selling variety with a mild flavour
Mehnir – a French banana shallot with a copper skin and mild, sweet flavour
Mikor – a red French variety with a sweet flavour perfect for cooking
Red Sun – a mild red shallot
Yellow Moon – excellent disease resistance
Potato Sets
The annual Potato Day at Springwood Park in Kelso has once again fallen victim to the Covid pandemic and will not go ahead this year. We are hoping to organize some sort of alternative outdoor event at Woodside if we can.
In the meantime we have secured a range of “Taster Packs” of some unusual potato varieties for you to try. These are available just now, but it is still to early to plant outside, so store in a cool, frost-free dry place until you’re ready to start chitting and planting.
Our current potato varieties are:
Carlingford – a second early suitable for containers. Very reliable and resistant to scab
Caledonian Rose – a red skinned variety with yellow flesh and good eelworm resistance. A reliable maincrop variety
Blue Danube – this is bred by the Savari Research Trust which produces varieties with natural disease to blight and viruses. This is a high yielding maincrop variety with blue skin and white flesh
Sarpo Una – another Savari variety with excellent blight resistance. This is a reliable second early variety for salad potatoes or leave to mature for baking potatoes
Alouette – a blight resistant main crop variety with a red skin. Award winning variety for it’s flavour
Harry – a second early with white oval tubers and yellow flesh. Good for roasting, mashing and baking
Heidi Red – a maincrop variety with long tubers with red skin and flesh. Good for salads
Lucerna – a second early with high yields and excellent flavour. Considered one of the best for baby new potatoes
Mayan Rose – a maincrop variety with a red skin and yellow blotches.
Salad Blue – a vigorous maincrop potato with distinctive blue flesh with floury texture. Good all-rounder
Our “Taster Packs” are £2.49 each for a pack of 10 tubers.
Other Vegetables available now:
Globe Artichokes
Jerusalem Artichoke Fuseau
Asparagus Pacific Purple
Rhubarb Red Champagne
Rhubarb Valentine
Winter Warmer Lunches
From this weekend we are starting a series of two-course winter warmer lunches featuring lovely traditional comfort food. These are available by pre-booking only and are served at 1pm on Saturdays and Sundays throughout January and into the beginning of February. Why not go for a good walk first, then come to Woodside for 1pm for your lunch? You could also meet up with friends (a maximum of 3 households indoors under current Covid rules) and on a nice day you could even choose to sit outdoors.
The price is £15 which includes a cup of tea or coffee and the menu options for various dates are below:
January 8th & 9th – Three-cheese Macaroni Cheese (V) & Syrup Sponge Pudding & Custard
January 15th & 16th – Pheasant & Shallot Casserole with Dumplings, & Bread & Butter Pudding
January 22nd & 23rd – Chilli con Carne with Rice, & Sticky Toffee Pudding
January 29th & 30th – Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Curry (V) with Naan Bread, & Toffee Apple Crumble
February 5th & 6th – Sausage-meat Stovies, & Chocolate Sponge Pudding
Please book by phoning 01835 830315
Sticky Toffee Pudding
There is a bit of a story around our Sticky Toffee Pudding (served on 22nd & 23rd January). For as long as I’ve known Stephen – about 30 years – he’s been going on and on about the best sticky toffee pudding in the world that he used to get when he worked as an apprentice gardener at the Sharrow Bay Hotel on Ullswater in the Lake District. None has ever matched this in all the years we’ve been eating out together and it’s become a bit of a long standing joke between us. However this year I surprised him at New Year by finding the original Sharrow Bay Hotel recipe and baking it for all the family. Now I’m no baker, but I have to say it was a triumph, and it has Stephen’s seal of approval as being the “real thing”, so I’m delighted to have scribbled the recipe down and brought it to Woodside for our kitchen staff here to make. Look out for it being featured fairly regularly on our forthcoming menus as it it absolutely gorgeous. I hate to say it, but Stephen – you were right!
Spring Bulbs and Winter Bedding Plants
The autumn season is now in full swing and we have had more spring bulbs delivered to add to our existing range of alliums, daffodils, crocus, iris reticulata and tulips. These are all suitable for planting now for gorgeous flowers next year.
New arrivals this week include:
Leucojum Gravetye Giant – Summer Snowflakes. These are giant snowdrop like flowers that come out in late spring/early summer.
Lilium candidum – the stunning Madonna Lily
Indoor Hyacinths – these have been specially prepared to flower early (hopefully for Christmas) and come in a variety of colours. We sell these as loose bulbs, so if you only want to try one, that’s fine!
Indoor Paperwhite Narcissus – several varieties to choose from, and again these are sold loose so you can have as many or as few as you like. Very fragrant.
Cyclamen cilicium – this is a hardy outdoor variety for autumn flowering
Erythronium Pagoda and dens-canis. Dog’s Tooth Violets. Pagoda is a large yellow form and a great alternative to daffodils in a shady spot. Dens-canis is our native wild flower with dainty mauve flowers.
Iris hollandica Red Ember – a very striking flower in shades of burnt orange and plum purple. Most unusual.
Galanthus Flore Pleno – the double flowered form of our much loved snowdrop.
Autumn and Winter Bedding
Now is the time to take out all your summer bedding plants, as they begin to look tired and the flowers are fading. But it doesn’t mean you can’t have colour in the garden until next spring. We have a great selection of autumn and winter bedding plants suitable for planting just now which will flower over the coming months.
Choose from:
Pansies and Violas – these are flowering now and will continue all winter and into spring, just having a rest in the very coldest of weather.
Wallflowers – these should be planted now for a showy and fragrant display next spring
Bellis – double daisy flowers will start to appear this autumn, but their main season is early spring
Sweet Williams – these old fashioned favourites make a lovely spring display of cottage garden type bedding
Primroses and polyanthus – these are mainly spring flowering, but a few flowers tend to appear in the autumn.
All these plants are sold in packs of 6 at £3.99 per pack, or 4 packs for £15.
Garden Ornaments
Its not just plants that can add interest to your garden in winter. We now have a range of larger garden ornaments in stock which can make a real statement in the garden. Come and have a browse, because you really need to see them to get the idea of scale.
Autumn Trees in Stock
We have nearly 200 autumn trees in stock following the large delivery that arrived last week. If you have already placed an order with us then you should expect a phone call soon to say your trees have arrived. If you haven’t already pre-ordered then don’t worry – there are plenty to go around! Highlights include a lovely range of Crab Apples (Malus) many of which are bearing brightly coloured fruits just now, a very pretty and unusual weeping variegated cherry called Prunus Frilly Frock, a good selection of Rowans (Sorbus) a weeping Mulberry, plenty of Victoria Plum trees, both on semi-dwarf and semi-vigorous rootstocks, and many more ornamental and fruit trees.. Don’t forget to plant with Bonemeal and Rootgrow for the very best possible start.
Bedding Plants
We are really well stocked with bedding plants just now as we have just had a fresh delivery in. The choice includes pansies, wallflowers, primroses, bellis, Sweet Williams and polyanthus. Summer bedding schemes in gardens are now beginning to look quite tired after the long warm summer, so this weekend should be a good time to haul the old plants out and plant with fresh plants, which will see you through right until next summer. For an even better Spring display, why not underplant with bulbs.
Bulbs
We now have just about all our bulbs in stock, and we have our biggest choice yet, including a fabulous Allium collection (look out for varieties Hair and Red Mohican – you’ve probably never seen alliums like these before!) and some of the giant border Fritillarias, known as Crown Imperials. We’ve also a great choice of Tulips, Daffodils, Dwarf Iris, Species Crocus, miniature Narcissus and lots more. We’ve also got bulb kits inside the shop for Christmas or winter gifts. Fill containers with Dalefoot Bulb Compost for the best results.
Autumn Gardening Essentials
We now have quite a bit more space for stock, due to our lovely new canopy that went up this year, and this means we can offer you more useful products than ever before. NEW in just now are:
Wheelbarrows – in trendy pink or traditional green
Besoms – traditional brooms perfect for sweeping autumn leaves
Leaf Scoops – like a pair of extra large hands to scoop up your piles of leaves
Bulb Planters – these remove a handy plug of earth to help make bulb planting that bit easier
One-handed shears – several of you have been asking for these handy tools, and so we now have them in stock
Herb Scissors – while not exactly seasonal, these amazing scissors are multi-bladed and will cut up your herbs into little pieces with very little effort. Maybe a good Christmas present idea?
Mushroom Kits – perfect for your own use or to give as a present.