IT’S a great time of year for the garden and it’s a great time of year for plants down at the farmers’ market.

Last week I featured Hotch Potch organic’s range of vegetable plants and they will continue with those for this, and the next few, weeks.

Down at Tortworth Plants, whose nursery is near Wotton-under-Edge and who attends the market every third Saturday of the month, they will have plenty of colour.

Plants they have on offer include blue, purple and mixed colour bearded irises, geums; a clump forming perennial with compact “hairy” foliage and masses of attractive flowers held on tall stalks from spring right through into the summer months; a good selection of flowering alpines; anchusas, which are from the borage family, the leaves are covered with stiff hairs and they have beautiful, small, radially symmetrical sapphire blue flowers growing on tall stalks, which retain their colour a long time, flowering throughout the summer in sunny borders; alliums with their huge flower heads; polemoniums, a lovely clump-forming perennial, requiring little maintenance that performs best in borders with moist but well-drained soil.

In early summer it produces bell-shaped flowers, which can be prolonged by regular dead-heading. They will also have their regular range of herbs.

There are also herbs available at The Lavender Garden, where Andrew has a range of herbs alongside his fabulous lavender collection.

There are more plants for the windowsill and garden at the Windmill Nursery stall in the market square, and fruit and vegetable plants from Down to Earth, the “grow your own” community project.

The thing I like about buying plants at the market is that I can get advice on growing direct from the grower themselves, which is always very helpful.

Elsewhere at the market About Soup return after a break, as does Jonathan “probably the best Gloucester cheeses in the world” Crump, Cloth and Clay pottery and textiles, Taena Pottery and the usual great selection of produce.