Reawakening

Tags

granny squares, helelbores, Michael Pollan, seed sowing, snowdrops

A shy hellebore

Slowly but surely the garden is emerging from its winter slumber. On gloomy, grey days the nodding heads of snowdrops glow; on gin-clear days they sparkle and glisten. Hellebores hang their flower heads as if they are too shy to display their beauty. The slender green shoots of crocus bulbs are appearing. One lone crocus is ahead of the pack, its buttermilk-coloured petals opening to the first hints of warm sunshine.

I, too, am experiencing a reawakening. I feel a bit like a bear poking its head out of its winter hibernation home, sniffing the air, rubbing its eyes and deciding whether it’s warm enough to emerge yet. Up until Sunday I would have said no. If I was a bear I’d have retreated inside, had a good scratch and eaten lots of marmalade. That’s what bears do, isn’t it? As I’m not, I put more logs on the fire, I read, I crocheted, I wrote and I ordered seeds. Too many seeds, as usual.

Then it was if that first tantalizing hint of spring arrived. Sunday was a stunner. Crystal clear skies and warm sunshine. Well, when I say warm it was 8⁰C, but that felt positively tropical now there was no north wind to add windchill to the freezing temperatures of the previous week. After weeks of wondering whether my garden mojo would return I was outside filling seed trays with compost and preparing for the first seed to be sown. The compost was cold. Cold enough to make my fingers numb. No seed would be encouraged into life in this, so the seed trays and modules have spent the last few days warming up on the heated propagator and near a radiator. It’s imparted an interesting smell to the kitchen, but hopefully it has created a much more welcoming place to sow my seeds this week.

There’s a lot written at this time of year about whether to sow or not. Most of us are so eager to start growing. The conditions aren’t ideal yet for many seeds and sowing too early can lead to problems later on with a backlog of plants too big to look after indoors but it’s not quite warm enough for them to be planted outdside. Some plants however do need an early start. They can be slow to germinate or just need a long growing season to do their thing. For me this includes flowers for my cutting patch such as ageratum, statice and antirrhinums. Any plants which say on the packet they will flower in their first year from an early start are worth sowing in the coming weeks. They’ll need a bit of warmth in order to germinate and as much daylight as you can give them. But, as we’re only six weeks away from the spring equinox and seven weeks from the clocks going forward, light levels are definitely improving. I also like to get sowing now as I know how frantic March can be. I have limited space so starting off some plants now is one way of staggering the seed sowing demands on the horizon.

Warming up the compost

Obviously a few sunny days in February doesn’t mean we can shake off winter just yet – as I’m writing this post, the gloom of winter has returned, with an impenetrable grey sky looming over head. But I’m going to embrace the last few weeks (hopefully) of winter and savour any time in front of the fire. My winter project – a crocheted granny square blanket – is nearly completed. It’s been an epic. All 208 squares are finished and I’m in the process of stitching them together. Then I just need to edge it with a border. The aim is to complete it for the start of March. I hate having unfinished projects lying around, so I know it needs to be completed before the garden grabs my attention.

Granny square blanket coming together

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to read in my lunch break. As work has been a bit crazy over the last few weeks (the pattern of freelance work is very much like the frequency of buses) my utopian idea of reading every day hasn’t come to fruition. But my resolution hasn’t been a complete right-off and I have managed to devote some time to this gem of a gardening book.

Michael Pollan – Second Nature

Second Nature by Michael Pollan is a fascinating and wittily written book by this American author. It’s worth reading simply for the hilarious description of his war with a woodchuck which sets up home in his garden – I laughed so much I snorted my tea. One of the benefits of working from home is that nobody saw that moment of inelegance. The book is full of deeper, thought-provoking ideas too – our love of roses, a gardener’s relationship with trees and man’s desire to tame nature – with each chapter following the creation of his own garden. I would heartily recommend reading it. Stop drinking your tea though when it comes to the woodchuck bit.

 

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Whizzing by

Tags

Lemon verbena, planting out, Rosa Gertrude Jekyll, seed sowing, Spring

Alliums in May

I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that May is whizzing by all too quickly. I’m trying desperately, in amongst the general panic of too much to do-ness, to find time to stop and appreciate what is one of my most favourite times of the year. So I’m taking a quick pit-stop to write a bit about what May means to me.

May means:

– late night, torch-light fleecing at the plot

– an emptying greenhouse

– overflowing cold frames

– a car boot full of plants ready to be planted out

– the joy of the first alliums opening

– despair at discovering the first of many holes in my hostas

– forgetting AGAIN to do the Chelsea chop

– and, thereby resigning myself to a summer of staking and floppy plants

– pickings of stock Matthiola incana, the most intoxicating of scents

– panic that I haven’t sown enough and I’ve missed the boat for another year

– panic that I have sown way too much and where is it all going to go

– chive flowers in full bloom lining my fruit beds at the plot

– watering my plot at twilight to the sound of birds

– anticipation after spotting the first swelling fruits on my strawberries

–  too many weeds

– the first rose on ‘Gertrude Jekyll’

– the smell of my warm greenhouse

– the miraculous sprouting into life of the overwintered twigs in a pot otherwise known as lemon verbena

– and finally the exhaustion that accompanies all of this. Everything comes at once and it all feels a bit relentless, but then I see the burgeoning garden and I pick some salad leaves, and I know why I do it. This is what keeps me going – along with tea and chocolate of course. Oh!, and the distant glimmer of hope that I might be able to sit down at some point soon. I’d love to know what May means to you.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

 

 

 

 

At Last – It’s Publication Day

Tags

Cinead McTernan, Jason Ingram, Kitchen Garden Experts, seed sowing, The Cut Flower Patch

So today is the day when my book is published. It feels like an age since I put the idea together and emailed it to a handful of publishers. I guess that’s because it is. It takes a relatively long time to put together a book with all its different stages. From idea to publication The Cut Flower Patch has taken 3 months short of 2 years, so to say I’m pleased the day has finally arrived is an understatement.

Tulips make stunning cut flowers

I have read some very lovely reviews and I’m over the moon that people seem to love the book. It really does make the hard work, sleepless nights and tearing my hair out at the weather worthwhile.

If you’d like a peek at some of the gorgeous images from the book to whet your appetite here’s a link to photographer Jason Ingram’s website. Whilst you’re there take a look at his own book Kitchen Garden Experts, created with his wife Cinead McTernan, which will be out on May 1st. Whilst Jason was working on my book he was also travelling the length and breadth of the country visiting the kitchen gardens of some of Britain’s best chefs and their head gardeners. Their book is a brilliant combination of growing tips and delicious recipes direct from the experts.

So if you love flowers, fancy filling you home with flowery gorgeousness and want to embrace the seasons rather than relying on imported blooms then hopefully my book will provide some inspiration.

Right, enough self-publicity, I’m off to sow some seeds. x

To order The Cut Flower Patch at the discounted price of £16.00 including p&p* (RRP: £20.00), telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk and quote the offer code APG101. 

 

*UK ONLY – Please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas.

If you’re in North America you can find The Cut Flower Patch at Amazon.com

Ploughing on regardless

Tags

seed sowing

February Gold Narcissi flowering at last

So one minute it feels like spring the next minute we’re plunged back into winter. Of course, this is perfectly natural at this time of year as the seasons change. It’s possible to have snow and hail showers even in April but I am so desperate now for some warmth and some sunshine and I know I’m not alone. It doesn’t help that this time last year we were basking in sunshine and temperatures into the seventies. But then again we all know how last year’s weather turned out.

After a stormy night with gusts of wind that disturbed my sleep I thought I should check the plot just to make sure a couple of cloche-type constructions I have up there were still in place. They had collapsed but the plants underneath were fine. Some remedial repair work was needed though. Our timing couldn’t have been worse as the blue sky turned dark and grey and a squally snow shower blew across the allotments. There we were, Wellyman and I, trying to fold a sheet of polythene which turned into a sail in the strong winds as tiny snow flakes whipped at our faces. There are times when I wonder why I grow my own and this was one of those moments.

This is the time of year when there’s much debate as to when to sow. Most of us are champing at the bit to get our hands on some compost once Christmas is over. In January though, light levels are low and some of the coldest weather of the winter is still ahead of us so it is wise to be restrained. There does come a point however, when, regardless of what the weather is doing outside, you just have to go for it. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. For me I would much rather take a bit of a risk and sow a little early perhaps and if the worst comes to the worst I can resow. If I’m fortunate and the weather is good then I’ve got a bit of a head start.

Spinach seedlings

This year has been a frustratingly slow start with many seeds struggling to germinate in the greenhouse but a bit of sunshine is all it takes now for the greenhouse to be lovely and warm inside. So in the last few weeks seeds have germinated and there are now heartening signs of growth. Spinach is growing well, as are my red leaved dandelions and my pot of pea shoots. Signs that my first salad pickings aren’t too far off.

Sweet peas germinated in the warmth of my kitchen have been moved to the colder greenhouse to encourage strong growth. Tempting as it is to try to get plants to grow more quickly, forcing them on in the artificially warm conditions of my home will only produce soft plants which will struggle when introduced to the reality of outdoors life.

Back in January before we had our first cold spell I noticed Verbena bonariensis seedlings appearing in my gravel path. It’s a plant I love but I tend to buy in good-sized plants in mid-spring as these have had a head start on the self seeded plants that appear in my garden. The mild weather up until that point must have encouraged these plants to appear; I wouldn’t normally expect to see them until April. I gently pulled them from the gravel and potted them up and put them in the greenhouse. There was a point when it looked like they were all dying but in the last few days strong healthy buds have started to appear. Sheltering in the greenhouse today with snowflakes hitting the glass it’s hard to believe that these little plants will be taller than me by the summer and swaying in a gentle, warm breeze. Tucked underneath on one of the shelves of my greenhouse staging are pots with dahlia tubers in them. I potted them up last week into slightly damp compost. Planting up dahlias early, as long as you can keep them somewhere frost-free until mid May, means a much longer flowering season.

For me this need to persevere and keep going is one of the reasons why I love gardening and growing so much. In many aspects of life I have a tendency to pessimism, or realism as I prefer to call it but growing sort of forces me to get on with things. It would be easy enough for me to look out the window and become quite downhearted by the weather at the moment and think I’ll just stay indoors where it’s warm and cosy. I know though that if I don’t sow and don’t prepare that I’ll curse myself in several weeks time when it is more like spring. It’s the window sills full of little pots of newly pricked out seedlings and signs of growth that tell me to plough on regardless. I’d love to hear about the seeds you’ve sown so far.

Seed Sowing No-Shows

Tags

Dobies, minimum germination rates, Nicky's Nursery, Sarah Raven, seed sowing

So we’re well into the main seed sowing period of the gardening year. It’s a time of great anticipation, with compost, trays and seeds at the ready. It’s a crucial time for every gardener, a window in which the plants that will feed us and provide colourful flowers throughout the summer and into the autumn are started into life. It can be make or break for some plants which need a long growing season to reach maturity, such as celeriac and parsnip. If these plants miss their window of opportunity that’s your chance gone for another year.

So it can be incredibly frustrating, to say the least when seeds don’t appear. We’ve all experienced that sparsely populated compost where there should have been a sea of shoots or even worse the completely bare seed tray. Of course, we blame ourselves. We must have done something wrong. Did we sow them too deep or too shallow? Was the compost too dry and too wet? Was it too cold for them to germinate? All of these are possibilities but how many of us think it might be the seed that is the problem? It might be a more likely explanation than gardeners realise.

In recent years the consumer magazine Which has carried out research to determine the germination rates of selected seeds from some of the main seed suppliers in the UK. In 2007 it discovered that significantly high percentages of seeds were actually dead at the time of purchase. One company’s Delphinium seed were found, when analysed, to be 99% dead and  the other 1% were unhealthy and just 15% of seeds of a variety of lettuce produced healthy plants (figures were taken from a report in The Daily Telegraph). Two years later they carried out more tests and found 7 out of 17 seed supplying companies failed to meet minimum germination standards with spring onion ‘White Lisbon’ and only 27% of a variety of pelargonium germinated. They did however praise several companies, including Nicky’s Nursery and Dobies for their overall seed health.

There are legal standards set by the EU for the germination of vegetable seeds. These minimum germination percentages vary according to different plants to reflect the natural viabilities of different seeds, for example it is 80% minimum germination for cucumbers and runner beans and 65% for carrots and leeks. I suppose I hadn’t really given it much thought but it is surprising and sobering to realise that a number of the seeds we buy are already dead, even if they are meeting the legal requirements and as Which discovered many are not even meeting these. Flower seeds are not covered by any minimum standards at all which seems quite shocking to me. I can’t think of any products that we purchase that don’t have to meet some sort of minimum standard. I can quite easily spend £20 – £30 on flower seeds in a year and the thought that I’m not getting what I paid for is annoying.

Larkspur plant – one that did germinate

My own experience so far this year has been mixed. Most of the seeds have germinated well, particularly sweet peas, celeriac and lettuce but I’ve had my fair share of frustrations. I sowed one seed tray, half with blue larkspur and the other half white larkspur. They had exactly the same conditions. The blue larkspur are now good-sized plants hardening off in my cold frame, not one white larkspur appeared though. I resowed and 3 have so far germinated which is not enough for my cutting patch. Sarah Raven, who I purchased the seed from said they knew of no other problems with the seed but promptly sent out another packet and I have now sown another batch. Rudbeckia ‘Cappucino’ is another seed I have had problems with, 2 years in a row. The contrast between this variety and another Rudbeckia variety ‘Prairie Sun’ is incredible, with virtually every seed of the latter germinating and a measly 1 out of 20 from the ‘Cappucino’ germinating.

With my cutting patch I’m trying to grow lots of varieties in small groups of between 6 and 10. With the confined growing space of window sills and cold frames, the problems of patchy germination or complete no-shows are heightened. I, like many other gardeners don’t have the space to sow lots of seed en masse.

Perhaps though, one of the main reasons why this problem seems to be brushed under the carpet is our reluctance as gardeners to complain when our seeds don’t perform as expected. I am guilty of this, too. Some companies are reluctant to admit there is a problem and insist it must be the gardener at fault and what gardener wants their seed growing prowess called into disrepute? Others seem to have a better understanding of customer service, such as Sarah Raven. I was talking to a commercial grower recently who has experienced the vagaries of seed germination and the reluctance of companies to acknowledge the problem and he said we should all complain more. It is only then that the companies would have to take more notice of the issue.

I’d love to hear if you’ve suffered from similar seed germinating problems and whether you’ve complained or not.

Making a dash for it

Tags

broad beans, charlotte potatoes, cold frames, courgettes, seed sowing, squashes

Dry days have been few and far between so far this April. Now I’m not complaining, there’s no denying we need the rain to fill the reservoirs and aquifers and my garden has taken on a lovely green hue as herbaceous perennials spring into growth. But I had started to suffer a window sill and cold frame backup, with plants needing to be potted on and moved into the cold frames to harden off but with no space available in the cold frames for them. It’s just been too wet to plant anything out. Well to be honest it’s been a bit on the cold side too.

So with the weather forecast suggesting more sunshine than showers yesterday I decide to make a dash for it and in a flurry of activity I planted out, potted on, sowed more seed and shuffled plants between window sills, cold frame and the allotment.

Sweet peas ready for planting out

The first to be planted out were the first batch of sweet peas. Sown back in February they were great looking, bushy plants in desperate need of some support so they could do their thing and start climbing. Due to lack of space at the allotment these sweet peas were destined for a hazel wigwam in my front garden. The idea is that they will add some height and provide scent for the warm, sheltered garden in front of my kitchen. To be honest the ground was a little on the wet side to be planting into but with the forecast suggesting another couple of weeks of similar wet weather these plants were going in regardless. Sweet peas can grow to over 2 metres over the summer and will produce huge numbers of flowers if you keep picking them so all this effort requires some food. I tend to add a bit of compost to the planting hole with a handful of comfrey pellets. Comfrey is high in potassium, the nutrient that plants use in the flowering process so this should encourage a good supply of blooms over the next couple of months.

Another batch of broad beans and some scabious plants were taken up to the allotment and planted up. Whilst there I spotted the first Charlotte potato pushing through so grabbing a spade I earthed up the shoots to protect them from any frost.

Back at home I sowed some more lettuce, basil and carrots in pots and then moved into the cold frame some antirrhinums, asters and larkspur. It’s all a bit of juggling act at the moment trying to have enough plants to plant out with some spares. It’s also time when gardeners start to gamble, gamble on the weather that is. When to sow the tender plants such as french beans, cucumbers and squashes can be a difficult one to call. None of them like sitting in cold, wet soil and don’t like fluctuations in temperature. Sown and grown inside these plants can grow quickly with the warmth of a window sill or greenhouse. The problem is if it hasn’t warmed up outside you could have some triffids on your hands probably not a problem if you have a greenhouse but squashes and courgettes are hard to maintain on a window sill once they get going.

It’s already later than I have previously sown but I decided to sow some courgettes, Defender, Romanseco and a patty pan type squash called Sunbeam and also a couple of pots of a red skinned squash called Uchiki kuri. I’m going to wait another week or so before I sow any cucumbers or french beans.

The first Clematis in flower despite the weather

As I’m writing this it has been teeming down for about 6 hours now and I’m just preparing to go out with waterproof trousers and wellies on. Such a good look but at least I’ll be dry. They say a months worth of rain will have fallen by the end of the week and I can well believe it. Hope the plants don’t drown!!

Seed sowing, shed clearing and fleecing an apple tree

Tags

espalier apple tree, frost damaged fruit buds, my untidy shed, seed sowing

My crab apple in bloom for Easter

So, as usual, the weather this spring is proving to be the gardener’s greatest foe. The warm March weather has brought on some plants, only for them to be hit by the cold spell at the start of April. My newly purchased espalier apple tree was starting to come into bud but with the weather forecast predicting more frost I was worried they would get damaged, which would potentially ruin any much anticipated first crop of apples.

It was Tuesday night on our way back from swimming that I noticed the car said it was only 4C. A perfectly clear night and our breath visible in the air, I felt fairly sure it would be a hard frost. So there we were at 10pm in the back garden with only the light of the moon to guide us, erecting a bamboo cane and fleece contraption around the tree in the hope this would protect the new fruit buds. This was after a quick detour to the allotment when I realised I had taken all the canes up to the plot several weeks earlier and there were none left in the shed.

Protecting our apple tree from frost

The cane/fleece construction did need some further work to it later in the week when Wellyman discovered that there were spots where the fleece had been touching the buds and they had suffered a little frost damage. Fortunately, it was nothing serious and after some more canes were added and the fleece stretched a little it seems to have provided the tree with sufficient protection. Although, as I write the fleece is now sagging under the weight of Bank Holiday rain and will need some remedial work before tonight and another predicted frost. Remind me why I wanted my own apple tree.

I spent Saturday afternoon sowing more seed and potting on. My larkspur, antirrhinums and scabious were all ready to go into individual pots. This is always a difficult moment for the gardener without a greenhouse. Deciding how many seedlings my window sills can cope with. It’s a balance between available space to grow on, how many I need and keeping some as spares in case some come a cropper due to pests, diseases, the weather or my own clumsiness. It’s hard having to get rid of perfectly good seedlings but there’s no point in keeping too many and not being able to look after them and they all suffer. Much better to be a bit ruthless and give all your care and attention to a few but end up with really strong healthy plants.

Seed sown included cosmos, rudbeckias, zinnias, spring onions, some primrose seeds in the green and some more peas. I also resowed a batch of white larkspur because the first batch didn’t germinate. Strangely, the blue larkspur sown at the same time germinated really well but not one of the white ones popped up. It’s annoying when this happens but at least at this time of year there is still a chance for plants to catch up.

Cosmos 'Candy Stripe' - hopefully it won't be too long before I'm picking these flowers

I am running out of space though so I’m hoping temperatures will start to warm up a little over the next couple of weeks then I can start moving plants out to the allotment and others can take their place in the cold frame. April and May are just one big juggling act and much as I enjoy seed sowing there is a great sense of relief when June arrives and all the plants are in their final positions.

And finally we tackled the shed …. again. I know this is a running theme but the shed is the engine room of the garden and my shed is by no means a well oiled machine. It did get a bit of a tidy up back in March but the problem is I’m so often in a rush that when I’ve finished in the garden I tend to just dump everything in there. Another problem is spiders. Now I am much better than I used to be. I’ve been able to share the shed with 2 fairly enormous arachnids for the last couple of months. It has meant one pile of pots has been out-of-bounds because I could see the legs of one spider peeking out from behind them on the shed wall but that was fine I had plenty of other pots I could use. Wellyman, however decided that whilst we were tidying out the shed anyway he might as well rehome the spiders.

Now I know the spiders are big when I hear a Wellyman’s voice from the shed say ‘Oh yes … that’s a big one’. I, of course, am several feet away at this point doing important pot sorting out tasks. Both spiders were captured, after a degree of huffing and puffing, in a container and taken to a flower border near the local bus stop. Hopefully they don’t have homing instincts, like snails. So here’s to Wellyman, my spider catching and releasing hero! And here’s to my newly tidied shed, pots neatly stacked, rubbish bagged up and waiting to go to the tip and I can see the floor again. The challenge now is to keep it that way for the rest of the summer.

First Pickings and Frost Fears

Tags

cold frames, forcing rhubarb, protecting from frost, seed sowing

The first produce of the year

Throughout the winter whilst I’m pining to be out in the garden or at the allotment it’s easy to forget about the ongoing battle gardening can sometimes be. If it’s not something trying to eat the plants, it’s the weather conspiring to make life as difficult as possible and last week was the perfect example.

I’m now in full blown seed sowing mode with cold frames stuffed with pots and trays and window sills performing their role as substitute greenhouse. The weather here in Wales, like most of the UK has been beautiful for several weeks now with unseasonably warm temperatures and unbroken sunshine. It has been a real pleasure to get out and garden in a t-shirt after spending months cocooned in layers of clothing. The soil has been dry allowing for preparation of beds for the coming season and I’ve been able to get so much done that wouldn’t have been possible with typical spring weather.

The problems, however came on Tuesday when I was preparing to go away for a long weekend, visiting family and friends. Now I know you might think I was bringing these problems on myself by going away at such a crucial time but arranging these visits is already a logistical nightmare without me saying I can’t go anywhere because I have plants to look after. We did once take some plants away with us on holiday. They were tender plants, courgettes and the like and it was May and too early for them to go out so they came with us and sat outside the cottage during the day and then I brought them in on a night. I can’t surely be the only one who has done this, can I?

Anyway back to the problem. The front garden cold frame gets sun from early morning right through to mid afternoon at the moment and it’s a real sun trap which is great ordinarily but not when the young seedlings are drying out so quickly and I won’t be around for 4 days. I knew I couldn’t leave them there so I moved them all round to the back garden which is much more shaded at the moment. Not everything would fit in my other cold frame though so I took a gamble and left some grouped together by the house. The other problem was to close the cold frame or not. Do I risk the plants keeling over from too much heat or being exposed to frost? Even at this time of year and especially with this weather the temperature under glass can rise significantly but then at night can drop dramatically. What was I to do? I settled for slightly propped open and then gave everything a good water before I left on the Wednesday, hoping for the best.

I was fairly confident my little plants would be fine until we caught the weather forecast on Friday night. Sharp frosts and minus 4C in rural parts of Wales were predicted for Saturday night. I envisaged coming back to blackened seedlings, some I’d be able to sow again, others like celeriac, which I’d been nurturing since February wouldn’t have a second chance this year. It’s hard to explain to non gardeners how it feels to see plants you’ve lovingly tended wiped out. Like the row of marigolds completely decimated overnight by slugs, the ripe and juicy strawberries nibbled by blackbirds or podding much anticipated peas only to discover the pea moth larvae have got there first, it can be soul destroying. Contrary to what some books and magazines say, gardening is hard work; pleasurable and enjoyable yes but requiring time and effort to produce the desired results. To see your hard work destroyed before you even get a chance to eat it, smell it or cut it is a bitter pill to swallow.

They survived!

Fortunately, this tale has a happy ending. There had been some frost and I did lose a baby fatsia but have another two that survived and a few flower seedlings aren’t looking too great but everything else including the celeriac survived unscathed, much to my relief. But with the warm spell coming to an end with predictions of snow for part of the week and still no significant rainfall it looks like the weather will make gardening a challenge again this year.

To end on a happier note we had our first produce from the plot yesterday, which is always cause for celebration. Two stems from the forced rhubarb clump made a very tasty crumble when combined with some apple. Hopefully the start of a productive year for all gardeners.

Into the Ground

Tags

Ammi visnaga, Beetroot 'Chioggia', Daucus carota 'Black Knight', seed sowing

Seed sowing

I decided to get sowing some seeds directly into the ground the other day. I don’t sow many seeds this way. Experience has taught me that the seeds and seedlings are easy pickings for slugs, snails and mice. Unlike plants in the garden I can’t get up to the allotment as frequently to check how everything is doing so I much prefer to start most of my plants off at home in seed trays, pots and modules, where I can nurture them to a good size before releasing them into the wild to fend for themselves. By this point they are much more able to cope with whatever the allotment might throw at them, whether its pest or weather related.

There are some seeds, however that prefer to be directly sown into the ground. They don’t like having their roots disturbed and it’s just as well really, with a limited amount of space to sow and grow on seeds it’s a bit of a relief that some can go straight into the soil. Of course with direct sowing does come problems. If you sow too early and the soil is still cold they will sulk, well wouldn’t you? Last year we had such a dry spring that lack of water was the problem. Quite a few of my early sown seeds didn’t germinate because I found it difficult to keep the seed drills moist. This isn’t normally a problem you would expect in spring, that’s what April showers are for after all, to provide just the right amount of moisture interspersed with sunny spells providing the warmth to provide the perfect conditions for seeds to germinate. Whether it’s climate change or just a blip in weather patterns we might not be able to rely on these perfect conditions in future.

The ground feels like it is warming up nicely. The old farmers’ way of checking the soil apparently was to sit on it with a bare bottom!! I have to say I didn’t go to these lengths. I don’t want that sort of reputation at the allotment and I find hands do a good enough job. If the soil feels nicely warm and it’s not too wet then it should be perfect to sow. Another good indicator is whether annual weed seeds have started to appear. If the conditions are right for them, your seeds should be fine too.

watering the seed drill first to help germination

The weather here in Wales has been glorious for 2 weeks now and the soil is quite dry so there are a few tactics I’m going to adopt to see if I can keep the soil moist enough for the seeds to germinate. The first task is making sure you’ve prepared the soil well with some organic matter, this helps to retain moisture not just in the initial stages but hopefully throughout the growing season. Then it’s a good idea to water the seed drill before sowing and finally, once you’ve covered over the seeds, mulch the drill with dry compost which helps to retain the moisture under the surface rather than it evaporating away. That’s the theory anyway, hopefully in practice it will work.

Dill flowers growing on the plot last year

The seeds I sowed today were two varieties of beetroot, ‘Boltardy’ and ‘Chioggia’. I had soaked the seeds overnight. I can’t remember where I read this tip but I had much better germination rates doing this last year. I also sowed some dill. I love dill’s feathery foliage chopped into potato salads, in omlettes and in sauces for fish but an extra benefit is the beautiful yellow flower heads make nice fillers in cut flower arrangements.

The other seeds were for my cut flower patch, Ammi visnaga and Daucus carota ‘Black Knight’. Both of these produce umbellifer flower heads which give arrangements an airy feel. I grew Ammi majus last year but visnaga is a chunkier form and ‘Black Knight’ is a cousin of Ammi majus but with crimson-black flowers which looked so unusual in the seed catalogue I just had to give it a go. Certainly Ammi majus was loved by hoverflies last year, so I hoping both these additions to my cut flower patch will benefit insects too.

I’d love to hear whether you started sowing outdoors yet.

Buds and Mummified Fruit

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buds opening, crab apple tree, grape hyacinths, pinching out sweet peas, seed sowing

After a week of mild weather the garden feels like it has really shaken off the last vestiges of winter. The snowdrops are no more but have been replaced by the golden glow of daffodils and clumps of primroses. Hellebores are still going strong and they have been joined by pulmonarias and grape hyacinths. But the sight that fills me with most joy is the tiny buds on my crab apple that are starting to unfurl. On Saturday I was doing the washing up and looking out of my kitchen window when I thought the branches looked different, squinting through the glass it looked like little specks of green were appearing. Abandoning my dishes and pans to investigate further I was greeted by this sight.

Crab apple buds

At the start of last week I had the not so pleasant job of removing the mummified fruit that were left on the tree. Last year had been a particularly good year for fruit and the tree had provided blackbirds, starlings, thrushes and redstarts with some vital food through the winter but there are always fruit that they don’t get to.

It’s not essential with a crab apple to remove the mummified fruit, I do it for aesthetic reasons. Not wanting the old wizened fruit to detract from the blossom that will start to appear over the next month. However, with a tree that provides eating apples it is important to remove any old fruit remaining on the tree as these can harbour diseases. I couldn’t get to all of the old fruit, especially those on branches over-hanging the neighbour’s garden but it still looked better for a bit of a tidy up. The smell from the apples was a quite potent, fermenting apple juice aroma. The excitement of what is to come over the next month as tight pink flower buds appear and then unfold to produce whitish pink blossom is building.

Clematis flower buds

Not only this but I discovered the soft, almost furry, flower buds on an early flowering Clematis. My honeysuckle is now covered in leaves and roses are springing into life. In fact, everywhere I look are signs of plants emerging, it’s like being reunited with old friends. I wander around the garden stopping and puzzling over plants appearing. I redesigned a couple of borders in my garden last autumn and I can’t remember where I put certain plants. I was also very kindly given some plants by gentleman from the allotments which I planted up but I couldn’t remember what I’d done with them. I’m really looking forward to seeing how my redesign will work.

Grape hyacinth (Muscari)

The garden isn’t the only place with signs of new life. My cold frame and kitchen window sill have trays and pots of seeds pushing through. I have broad beans waiting to go up to the allotment, sweet peas that I have pinched out the growing tips to make bushier plants and edible peas which are just germinating. There are celeriac seedlings that need pricking out and only a week after sowing I have my first hardy annuals for my cut flower patch. I have a ritual every morning of opening the blind in the kitchen and then checking my seeds. Even though I know it’s not possible for seeds to germinate overnight I will check them the day after sowing. It generally takes between 7 to 14 days for seeds to germinate so I was really surprised to find seeds sown last Tuesday had germinated by Saturday and that I could see my first echium and scabious plants.

Cold Frame

There’s plenty to do, with the busiest time for gardeners upon us. So on that note I’m off to sow some more sweet peas and having read other blogs it sounds like I should introduce some leek seeds to some compost. Happy seed sowing!!!