PaintedGourds2
Children's Corner
Many children are keen to try their hand at gardening or are just inquisitive “to see what comes up”. Others may want to grow something giant that reminds them of children’s stories. I was roped in to take out tomato side shoots and to debud Chrysanthemum flowers at the age of 4, and I really enjoyed it all, until our geese neatly cut off all my flowering Anemones! We have put together on this page some fun items to tempt any budding horticulturists. The picture above shows what fun can be had painting dried large Gourds!
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Arachis hypogaea

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Monkey Nut (15 seeds Pr Pkt)
Monkey nuts are neat plants resembling clovers. They can grow to 10 feet high but much smaller in pots with pretty yellow male flowers. The novelty is the female flower that sends out an aerial “peg” that extends all the way down to the soil, buries into the soil and produces up to four peanut seed pods 2” to 6” deep at the tip of each “peg”. Fascinating if you have not grown them before.

Carrot Purple Haze F1

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Purple Carrot (Aprx 300 seeds Pr Pkt) җ
An award winning purple carrot. The 10” to 12” smooth purple carrots taper to a point and reveal a bright orange centre when cut. Colourful and sweetly flavoured raw, their colour though will become diffused when cooked. Apparently this carrot was named after the Jimmy Hendrix song!

Desmodium gyrans

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Telegraph Plant (10 seeds Pkt)
Another really unusual plant that actually moves its leaves about under certain conditions. Small lateral leaflets rotate on their axes and jerk up and down within a period of about 3 to 5 minutes early in the morning as the sun warms the plant to around 22°C. Patience may be needed to observe this phenomena but the plant is easy to raise from seed and soon makes a small shrub in a warm greenhouse.As far as we know the only four plants that show any leaf sensitivity movements are, Desmodium gyrans, Mimosa pudica the sensitive plant, Venus Fly Trap, and Averrhoa carambola the star fruit tree.

Dinosaur Gourd

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Large Strange Gourd (Qty 10 seeds Pr Pkt)
A very unusual club gourd with raised "veins" A new item for us and a real novelty that I will certainly be growing next year in our seed trials.

Helianthus Bott's Strain

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Giant Sunflower 10 seeds
A huge slender sunflower with smaller, sometimes multiple flower heads, capable of achieving 16ft or more, mine only reach about 12ft so lets see what you can do! A great novelty for the kids.

Helianthus Craven Strain

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Super Giant Sunflower 8 seeds
A huge, heavy stemmed 4" diameter sunflower with large flower heads 18” across and big leaves, capable of achieving 25ft or more with a rich soil and an early sowing. The original seed source came from a 25ft record height sunflower that needs a long growing season to develop its full potential.

Helianthus Grey Stripe

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Giant Sunflower 10 seeds
Another huge sunflower grown for shear size maybe to 16ft with massive 18” wide flower heads. The challenge with this one is keeping it upright with the weight of the large heads! Heavy 3" diamaeter  stems and large leaves.

Helianthus Russian Mammoth

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Giant Sunflower 10 seeds
This one is not from Russia but one that the Russians preferred for eating purposes. It bears huge single 22” flower head on strong plants to 10ft. It will probably need staking to support the heavy heads.

Large Gourds

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Mixed Shape Large Gourds (Qty 10 seeds Pr Pkt)
I have had great fun growing these again a few years ago in one of my greenhouses. Don't be fooled by the pictures these are monsters some up to 3ft long! Fully ripe and allowed to dry out in a warm room over winter they turn "wooden" making excellent Maraca ornaments.

Mimosa pudica

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Sensitive Plant (Pr Pkt)
If you have small grandchildren or children you must try growing this unusual plant. Only reaching 12" or so high it has delicate ferny foliage and pretty small pink flowers.

However the leaves fold up at the slightest touch recovering in 10 or 15 minutes back to their original form hence the name!

Ornamental Corn Fiesta

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Ornamental Corn (10 seeds Pr Pkt)
A hybrid mix of the best ornamental corn for dried decoration. This unique Indian corn includes various tones of blue, red, yellow and white. Earlier than other Flint corn and averages 7 to 10 inch ears with 50 to 70% having attractive ornamental purple husks.

Pumpkin Dill's Atlantic Giant

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The Worlds Largest Pumpkin! (5 seeds Pr Pkt)
Have a go and see how big you can grow a pumpkin. This variety regularly produces 400 lb. pumpkins with a record weight of  over 1000 lbs.! I have even heard that in hot weather the vine can grow 3ft over night! You will need a big warm plot for one of these and some rich manure dug in. Note this variety is much larger than "Hundredweight" that has had a lot of publicity lately.

Pumpkin F1 Jack of all Trades

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Halloween Pumpkin (10 seeds Pr Pkt)
Perfect for Halloween with the right size, skin colour and quality, but also good for eating. You can expect pumpkins to weigh about 5kg to 7kg. Why not let the kids have a go at growing them for Halloween?

Sweet Corn Hopi Blue

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Indian Blue Corn (15 seeds Pr Pkt)
An unusual sweet corn developed by the Hopi Indians renowned for its sweet and distinctive blue cornmeal. Excellent for eating fresh while the kernels are tender just as they start to turn from white to blue, but used dry for blue corn chips, blue flour etc. Also used for decoration. Bushy 5 foot plants produce 7 inch ears and are quite nutritious. What upsets me most is that they are really delicious but all of our own trial crops have to be turned into seed for resale and my wife won't let me eat them!!

Sweet Corn Mexican White

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Giant Sweet Corn (10 seeds Pr Pkt)
A huge edible American sweetcorn variety to 16ft tall with massive 2ft cobs. Grows really fast which the kids will love and easy to germinate. Start off in pots in the warm then plant out after any frost danger has passed. Although very strong plants they may need staking in a windy position.

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Symbol Codes

Germination -- Easy Moderate and Challenging

Backlog for Fresh Seed

Hardiness - To -5°C җ To -10°C җҗ Fully Hardy җҗҗ

Needs Shady Position Sunny Position Water Loving