Tag Archives: seeds

Not Going Cheap in the Sales

January means planning the spring planting but these days, fewer seed catalogues are landing on my doormat.  Either the postal service is getting worse, or the seed companies are going electronic.  Either way, instead of browsing catalogues, nowadays I am surfing the Web for my gardening fantasies.

I have plenty of seeds left over from summer, so have only needed to supplement them with a few from Ben at Higgledy Garden.  But the internet is a dangerous place and leads me into horticultural temptation.  After the losses of ‘dahliagate’ I was minded to order fresh ones to swell the depleted ranks and while I was browsing those tubers, I could not resist ordering a bulk batch of ranunculus.

My relationship with the Persian Buttercup over the years has been tempestuous, to put it mildly.  The first time our paths crossed, at the Old Place, we managed to produce a fine crop of the multi-layered rose-like blooms.  It seemed so simple:  stick them in a pot in the autumn greenhouse, and by early summer – Boom!

In subsequent years I have tried the same formula, but it just hasn’t worked out.  They have thrown up a few, sometimes weedy, green leaves, but each time they have wilted and died in the pot before spring could arrive.  And this autumn I put them in 9cm pots and they never even bothered to germinate or shoot.  Just rotted.  I desperately want ranunculus in my life, but each time I try, they just swipe left.

I am clearly doing something wrong.   Reading their biog, I see that they like the paradoxical “damp, well-drained soil.”  So, they do not like being dry, but at the first sign of too much water, the corms will melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Mrs B laughed when she knew I had succumbed to the Temptation of Ranunculus once again.  The words of Soft Cell, she regards my attraction to ranunculus as a so so love; the standing joke of the year.  For my part, I tried to make it work and although they didn’t even germinate last time, I wanna make sure it doesn’t happen again. 

Despite my best intentions and ferent hopes, deep down I know that, even if they do manage to produce a few green shoots, I it is likely to be another case of  Say Hello then Wave Goodbye.

Spud You Like

Someone Told me to wash my silver birch...
Someone suggested cleaning my silver birch…

The February half term break feels like a significant moment in the horticultural year.  Mrs B is fed up with the cold weather, but finally it seems the days are lengthening, and March is nearly upon us, which, nominally at least, is the start of spring.  The growing season is imminent, but now I start waking in the night worrying that it is too late to sow annuals and veg seeds.

Last month Mrs B and I braved the winter chill to make the annual Potato Day pilgrimage to Caryford Hall, joining the line of fellow pilgrims earnestly shuffling past the colour-coded plastic tubs of first and second earlies or main crop chitters.  Unusually, I went with little planning or forethought on what I wanted, or perhaps it signifies how I kinda know what I want these days, without having to overthink it.  No plan was probably wise, as many of the spuds I would have grown in the past were not available, not even anything Arran based, so I randomly selected Jazzy, Pentland Javelin, and Caledonian Pearl.  All of them are earlies, as these days I tend to agree with Mrs B’s view that main crop do not justify their space in the raised beds. 

As we stood in line, I heard rumblings of discontent among the Potato Day punters. 

“They’ve got no International Kidney and no Pink Fir Apple”, muttered one middle aged lady. 

“Hmm.  It’s a pretty crap year” was her husband’s considered reply, which I thought was little harsh, as the Pennard Plants staff always offered a couple of alternatives, but that just led to more earnest debates on their relative merits.

“What do you think love, Marvel, or Sunset?”

Apart from potatoes, I bought some chilli seeds and aubergine seeds, as they need an early start, and I am pleased to say they are already germinating.  It is always exciting to see the first seedlings poking through.  I never tire of this horticultural ‘miracle of birth’ which spurs me on to sow lots of annual flowers.  The flowers seeds are germinating in the greenhouse, but I started the chillis and aubergines on the heated floor of the bathroom, which probably helped them, but created an element of jeopardy and mild peril for any nighttime trip to the toilet. 

Just another reason why Mrs B cannot wait for the warmer weather arrive.

Serried ranks of garlic
Aubergines
Chillis love a bit of heat
Tulips are coming
Love that shiny clean bark
Calendula always do well (to start)
Broad Beans
Rhubarb looking good this year

Box Fresh

February has been so mild; it feels like spring.  Which it almost is, isn’t it?  But we are not fooled in the Midlife Garden, despite the daffodils coming up weeks ago, wallflowers currently adding splashes of gold in the front border and even the Viburnum Mariessii about to come into flower.  It is still not spring.  OK? 

But we are keen to get our annual flowers established in plenty of time for July and the Big Fat Somerset Wedding.  Over the years of the MLG, the trend is for me to be getting flowers to bloom earlier and earlier.  Whether this is due to my burgeoning horticultural expertise or the result of global warming, is a moot point.  When I started in the Old Man’s Garden in 2012, I was chuffed when the first sweet pea came out on 10th July – my mother’s birthday (mum was a dab hand with sweet peas, so it felt right).  A few years later I was getting sweet peas in June and even May.  So I should be cautiously optimistic about prospects for July, but it is a constant ongoing work of Plan, Do Review. As the someone once ironically said to me: “Better Never Stops”.

So, I have worked through my 2023 ‘Annual’ Review to address any potential problems for 2024.  Germination of seeds is not generally an issue: a warm windowsill (or spare bed) gets most seeds started, after which pots and trays migrate to the greenhouse to continue their early life.  It is here that we encounter challenges, be it from the threat of hard frosts or the voracious appetite of slugs and snails. 

As my internal corporate life coach tells me, challenges are opportunities for growth, so that is how I approach the issue in the MLG. I guess I could bring the seedlings inside if frost is forecast, or every night if I want to avoid the slugs. But this is time-consuming and requires a level of commitment and foresight that is often beyond me. So, this year I am going for a double insulation solution that might – just might – cover all bases.

It is an idea I found from my long-term seed supplier at Higgledy Garden.  Young Ben does not have a greenhouse, but instead uses storage boxes, which provide all the warmth the seedlings need.  With the lid on, he can guard against pests too, and if there is a truly severe frost (which is admittedly less likely in his sub-tropical Cornish wonderland), he can stack the boxes up indoors for the night.  It seems too good to be true, so I am testing his idea by popping all my seeds into 3 cm square pots, inside storage boxes and I am planning to put them in the greenhouse for that added security.  It should be seedling heaven.

I am fully aware that that even if I manage to get the boxes, get the seeds sown and they do actually germinate, I will be a long way from being out of the seedling woods, as evidenced by my sweet peas in December and January having lost 50% of the little guys (and counting) through damping off.  To try and guard against that particular threat I have, for the first time, washed all my pots to eradicate all the nasty viruses and grollies that might be lurking there from last year. 

So, come on seeds, what more do you need to work your magic?  Let’s get growing.

Sowing the Seeds

When I started this post a week ago the immediate concerns surrounded the aftermath of another weekend bringing another storm – Jorge.  It seemed that our post-Brexit freedoms did not extend to naming our own storms with those Europeans coming over here, bringing their continental storms, messing with our rivers and flooding our golf courses.

Now we have the non-specifically named Covid-19 coming over here threatening to mess with everything and everyone we hold dear.  I wonder if we can comprehend the enormity of what we might have to face and the steps we can take to mitigate the the effects of the impending epidemic.  Back in 1976 when my father decided to buy a property with 6 1/2 acres of land it was, in no small part, because he wanted to be able to sustain a degree of self-sufficiency in case of a break down in the supply chain through either economic uncertainty of nuclear disaster.  I am not sure if he saw Opec or Russia as a bigger threat, but he was determined to be ready.

It seems many think we might be facing such a scenario now – which would explain the bizarre headline shortages in toilet rolls and hand sanitizer.  Really?  In his day, my father was concerned about shortages in proper essentials like, um, food.  So he grew vegetables on an industrial scale.  I cannot compete with him in the scale of my veg growing operation, but I have managed to maintain an element of self-sufficiency and am hoping that Mrs B and I will have a decent crop of vegetables for the summer.

This week we cooked the last of the stored squashes:  the recipe required “one large squash, 1 Kg”.  Half of my last Crown Prince squash weighed a whopping 2kg so perhaps it pays to grow your own.  We have almost finished the kale but the purple sprouting is doing as described (sprouting, in purple).  There are still leeks in the garden and the rocket has got its act together in the greenhouse, so we have green leaves.  And our hen – plucky Agatha – continues to lay eggs at regular intervals.  For the new season there are the green shoots of new garlic and shallots.  It might not be enough to ward off the prospect of self-isolation, but it is, if nothing else, pleasing to know that we can provide at least some of our diet for ourselves.

Most of the recent horticultural work has revolved around sowing seeds.  I have ordered all my veg seeds, which I will start sowing in trays this weekend, but in some ways the more emotionally rewarding work has been in planning the flower garden for the summer.  There will be a new border to be planted in Josh’s memory and I plan for the rest of the garden to be vibrant with colour and flowers for cutting.  Ultimately the new beds will be planted with perennials, but as these will take a year or two to mature, I am sowing more annuals than I have ever done to ensure the borders are more packed than the Greco-Turkish equivalent.  For flower seeds my go-to source is always Higgledy Garden and he includes old favourites such as cosmos, nicotiana and sweet peas, as well as newbies like Cleome Spinosa, amongst others, and a free packet of Godetia.

My father used to say that if you could not eat it, he did not want to grow it, but as I see the seedlings poking through and I look forward to sunny summer days and blooming borders in the garden it is a good time of year to remember Jesus being tempted in the desert and remind ourselves that we cannot live on bread alone.

Or toilet rolls for that matter.

Dafs surviving despite their broken home
Tree Peony?
Spring is coming
Frogs been busy
Plants getting ready for planting
Sweet Peas
Cosmos emerging
Droopy Cornflower
Stocks – rising
Echinops – the Great Blue Hope
Aaah – spring bulbs & Christmas Roses

 

 

 

April Unfurls

Easter Buns
My Easter Buns

It’s Easter and bunnies are very much of the moment around here as Ella once again caught her very own Easter Bunny when VB took her for a walk. In Ella’s defence (and the rabbit’s for getting caught by a lugubrious black lab in open grassland twenty hops from the safety of the burrow) there is a lot of myxomatosis around at the moment. So perhaps Ella is doing a merciful task putting rabbits beyond pain before they become too sick. A canine Dignitas for rabbits – though not so dignified for Verity who struggled to get her retriever to drop the still warm, possibly breathing, rabbit.

Who's been digging in my bed?
Who’s been digging in my bed?

Down the garden there was evidence of rabbits in the garden as one part of the chicken wire seemed to have been pushed down before a couple of random holes were dug in the onions.  No onions were harmed in the skirmish but I have since got another couple of rolls of chicken wire from Swift Huts and renewed the rabbit proof fencing around both veg patches.

The  main item on the list of jobs is PLANTING.  The greenhouse is fit to bursting with seed trays full of Broad Beans,  Cabbages, Curly Kale, Cavalo Nero, Kohl Rabi, Leeks, Mangetout, Sugar Snap Peas, Peas, Purple Sprouting, Butternut Squash, Uchiki Kuri Squash, Sweet Peppers, Chilli Peppers, Tomatoes, Coriander, Basil and Aubergines.

Old Faithful
Old Faithful

In addition to a mass of full seed trays, another sure sign of spring is the sound of the rotovator. The old Howard never fails you.  It can sit in the Cow Stall all winter, unloved and seemingly forgotten, but comes out in the spring like a Grizzly Bear from hibernation ready to take all before it.  It never fails to start and apparently needs no maintenance.  It is a marvel.  Or so I was saying as the clutch went half way through digging the salad bed….

I had a feeling it would be easy to mend, but neither myself nor Jim could see it so I was forced to ask the OM to tell me how to re-attach the wire.  I am increasingly worried by his lack of mobility and unwillingness to walk further than the garage and back, but such was the importance of the issue, he made it down the garden to stand on one side of the chicken wire and instruct me on how to mend the machine.  Fortunately it was done in a trice and hopefully the exercise did him good

In the main veg patch I have gone all “No Dig” this year, with the cardboard  keeping the weeds down, so I was able to plant the spuds with relative ease.  I have a combination of Belle de Fontenay, International Kidney, Cherie, Pink Fir Apple, Sarpo Mira and Sarpo Una.  It looks pretty good – apart from the cardboard bits.  While digging them I got an ear worm of “No Surprises” by Radiohead…”A heart that’s full up like a landfill…”

But this job is not going to kill me – it’s what makes me feel alive.