About Sea Spring Plants

Sea Spring Plants is owned and managed by us, Michael and Joy Michaud. It is based at Sea Spring Farm, a specialist nursery overlooking the English Channel in West Dorset.

 

 

Sea Spring Plants is a business in two halves:

• June to September
We sell large chilli plants in 1 litre pots. These chilli plants are well grown, but their exact maturity and number of fruit on them will depend on the month you make your purchase.

• October to May
We sell chilli and sweet pepper plug plants from the end of April and up to the end of May. However, we start taking pre-orders for  plug plants from October of the previous year. Mail out of the orders starts at the end of April, with the earliest orders, i.e. those made in October, being sent out first.

Sea Spring Plants is managed along side our other business, Sea Spring Seeds, which sells vegetable seeds. As gardeners ourselves we sells seeds of reliable, productive and good tasting varieties that we would grow ourselves.

 

Testing

All plants offered by Sea Spring Plants are of chilli varieties that we consider to be exceptional in their class. Several of them are varieties developed by us and are unique to Sea Spring Plants/Seeds.

Everything we sell we have grown ourselves, checking their growth habit and productivity, and tasting them and cooking with them. We run the variety trials on our nursery, sometimes trialling a variety for two or three years, we also ask other gardeners to try out promising varieties. In addition, all chillies that we sell we have had tested for heat level, so the SHU numbers quoted are all based on our own experience. Testing is an on-going process, and trials are done every year so that we can make improvements to the range we have on offer.

 

Experience

We have been in the growing business for over forty-five years. We started specialising in chillies in 1994, which as far as we know, means we were the first commercial chilli growers in Britain.

 

Unique varieties

We breed chillies, and several varieties we sell  – including Dorset Naga, which was once the hottest in the world, and started the global chilli heat race! –  were bred by us. We have several lines currently under development, and though it can take up to ten years (or more!) to produce a new variety we aim to launch a new variety every year.

In addition, we are plant-hunters, always on the lookout for new and exceptional varieties. We check out allotments and shops catering to Britain’s immigrant population, where we constantly find some amazing chillies.  Some of the results of our plant searches are on offer as plug plants this year. Check the plant shop for varieties currently available.