A new growing technique that dramatically increases the retail shelf life of young plants was unveiled at Glee by Gardeners Kitchen, leading suppliers of vegetable and herb plants to UK and Ireland garden centres.

GK, who regularly feature in the Garden Trade News Veg2Grow Bestsellers charts, is a family run-business with over 50 years of experience, based near Evesham in Worcestershire. They say  their new cultural technique can add as much as two weeks to the shelf life of most of the 140 or so named veg varieties they produce.

Managing director Philip Boers said:“Retailers are rightly concerned about their margin and wastage is a big factor in this with a perishable product such as young veg plants. Our new growing technique, which has taken us a long time to perfect, comes as a result of our years of experience of commercial production using the best varieties and extends shelf life once the plant leaves our nursery. Retailers should expect up to two weeks of top quality shelf life under normal conditions from our plants and we can double this to four weeks.”

GK’s sales and marketing director Helen Boers says retailers often understandably continue to display plants that are past their best. “This harms sales overall so Gardeners Kitchen plants for the 2013 season will boost sales as well as reduce waste giving retailers improved margins over traditionally grown varieties.”

GK say months of trials have consistently shown extended shelf life with no harm to growth and crops for the home gardener longer term.

 “Our plants will perform better once planted out than starved, stunted and anaemic plants that have sat on a garden centre bench for too long.”

Gardeners Kitchen Plants are grown pesticide-free under an integrated pest management system.