Tag Archives: Sowing

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

 

 

 

The Summer in one day

 

Sunshine and showers

With the summer continuing changeable, one is almost taken aback by a bit of warm sunshine.  Wednesday provided the whole of this season in one day, with light rain followed by torrential rain, which cleared to warm sunshine, during which, with masterful timing I took the dog for a walk.  A good walk only spoiled by Fudge going ballistic at a slightly startled elderly rambler; though Fudge had good cause to complain: the lady was wearing full rambling gear, carrying maps, back packs and hiking stick all accessorized badly with what looked like a yellow bin liner by way of waterproofing.  Enough to freak the most laid back canine.

By the time we returned, the blue skies were being invaded by scudding clouds as the wind got up and blew away any thoughts of a leisurely afternoon sunning myself in the garden.

Instead I prepared the ground for, and planted, lines of swede and chard as well as hedging my bets by planting a couple of seed trays of the same in the greenhouse as well as some small pots of cauliflowers.

At the other end of the reap and sow spectrum, I picked more runner and french beans as well as a courgette (zucchini to our north american brethren) which magically went from the size of a small pencil to torpedo in hours flat.  In between times I had trimmed the tomato plants to stop them taking over the whole greenhouse.

Elsewhere around the garden the are plenty of flowers blooming at long last, with cornflowers for cutting looking good – though how on earth you get them to grow straight I have no idea.  At the Olympic Park they have thousands of the beggars standing straight and tall in vast beds.  Fantastic – but how do they do that?!

Blousy? Moi?

The Love in the Mist are finally blooming joining the Nicotiana in the corner bed.  The scent of Nicotiana is so lovely on a warm evening as we go to shut the chickens in.  And lovely set off with the Love in the Mist and the Cosmos.  Elsewhere there are numerous splashes of colour including the infamously blousy Dahlias (The Old Man is very pleased with them – but they stand out in the flower beds like rambler wrapped in flapping yellow plastic).  I don’t know the names of flowers – I am don’t have the brain for it – but they look kinda nice and next year we will hopefully plan and develop the colour schemes a little more.

So yesterday had all the summer in one: sun, rain, wind, cloud, preparing, planting harvesting and just some good old seasonal flowering.

Nicotiana – great performers

We should label things

Sprouting brocoli.

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore had – as their alter egos Derek and Clive – an expletive-laden conversation regarding the lack of labelling on important household items (such as motorbikes and sunglasses – getting them mixed up can be awkward, it seems) and I often find myself reciting the lines in my head as I go around the garden looking at rows of green stuff sprouting up, trying to remember what they are or how I should be harvesting / nurturing them.

The brocoli we planted is sprouting nicely, though not in one big head.  As these are the plants that Lynn gave to us we are not too sure what type they are, so I am second guessing what to do.  Perhaps they are “cut and come again” brocoli which I can just take off florets and more grow.  But they are just the size of purple sprouting and at the moment we don’t get much of a meal from them.

How ripe is my tomato?

The tomatoes are another issue – I have been patiently waiting for the first one to ripen to its full red bloom, only to discover that this type are naturally orange in colour and will not turn red.  Change the label to orange tomato.

Mind you, even with a label and instructions, life does not always work out.  My coriander seeds which the packet told me would take something stupid like a matter of hours between sowing and harvesting, have taken months to only produce three pathetic seedlings.  It don’t always do what it says on the tin.

One row of potatoes – spot the difference

And even when your plants do well, you cannot always be sure what you will harvest.   Lynn kindly provided us with a whole host of different chitting spuds, from Belle de Fontenay second earlies to Sarpo Mira Main Crop.  I carefully planted each type in its own row and assiduously labelled each one accordingly.  What soon became apparent when the spuds came up was that they were not necessarily uniform rows: the tops were clearly different, and since the destruction of the plants by blight, I havent’ a clue what I am going to find.  This week we dug several roots of potatoes that are like no other we have planted – so while one root is clearly Setana, the next is bright red – maybe Duke of Yorks?  Who knows.  But it brings even more excitement to an otherwise mundane task fo digging spuds.

As Derek and Clive said “If people would label things…you’d know where you were”.

Trail of destruction – the snails didn’t read the label either…

Beans and Bugs

Wisteria in bloom

The recent dry weather well and truly broke last week. The fact that it was half term holiday (and the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations) only added to the air of despondency at the inclement weather.  The wind was threatening to knock over some of the newly planted veg and evidence of the strength of the gales was there in the morning in the shape of large parts of the walnut tree lying like bones on the grass.  I had transplanted my lupin from behind the hostas in the middle bed (I had not noticed the “dwarf” descriptor on the label) into the more exposed Silver Wedding Bed and the flower subsequently got knocked off.  The rest of the plant does not look too happy either.  I guess it was happy hiding behind the hostas.

The weather put paid to the wisteria blossom as well as finishing off some of the irises.

Iris in sun. For a short while.

Wisteria always conjures thoughts of mullioned windows and Oxbridge courts, so seeing a fine wisteria blossoming on my father’s tool shed still feels a little incongruous.  But I do love the fine new leaves and the stunning flowers.  They dazzle in the sunlight.  Just not so good in the wind and the rain.

But overall, everything was sound.  The mature trees – many of which my parents have planted over the years – give good shelter for the garden.

So not too much doing this week.  We put in a row of purple sprouting, planting them closer than I had the Brussels.  The Brussels I had put well apart, still thinking about how my father would probably say I had put them too close, only for him to say that I had put them further apart than he normally would.  You just can’t win sometimes. I didn’t worry.  It will be easier to pick them.  But we seem to be balancing our relationship now, with me doing stuff and him offering simple advice where necessary.

Black fly, black fly, little black fly…they make me itch just looking at them.

We planted another row of mixed lettuce and also some pepper plants in the greenhouse.  However, my experiment with parsnips in newspaper or toilet rolls seems to be floundering as the green shoots are curling up under an aphid onslaught. We will have to see what can do about that.  Black fly is another potential problem on the broad beans, but with a little advice from the old man I have started picking the tops out of the plants.

But this has proved too late, as there are plenty of the little blighters crawling into the folding fans of the early leaves and getting milked by the ants on the stems.  But fear not!  My dad pointed me in the direction of a can of bug spray.  It has been sitting on the gas canister outside the greenhouse all winter as far as I can tell and I did not dare ask if it was really full of toxic aphid slaughtering chemicals.  Well apparently it is.

One little tyrant making my parsnips curl

So I gave them all a good going over – including the harbingers of destruction on my nascent parsnips.  I tend to hold to the policy of “if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing quickly”, so when it comes to controlling pests, I am rapidly finding myself in the spray, swat and splat school of bug control.  None of the organic, let’s encourage ladybirds and hoverflies to come and eat them all, “third way” kind of liberal nonsense.  No: Direct Action.  And fast.  That’s what we want.  We can send invitations to the ladybirds for next summer.  If it means preserving my darling beans of May (or June, or whatever) spraying with Bug Off is what I’ll do.

And I hate myself for it.

The Lost Front Garden raised (or shoud that be razed?)

Meanwhile out the front, I spent a happy afternoon in the rain doing the nearest equivalent of slash and burn on the front garden which some years ago we made into a gravelled patio area but which in recent times has become somewhat overgrown.  Judicious use of the strimmer – just a little worrying with shingle stones in the grass  – and other destructive tools, and the sweet Monsieur Hulot type path was retrieved.  And in the process, more nettles (otherwise known as Ladybird heaven) were destroyed.

Oh dear, no more green planet.  A few toxins won’t do any harm, will they….?!

The Sun Also Sets

Memo to self – plan for an organic 2013.

Shoot Em Up

Today I managed to take another leaf out of my father’s book, to follow in his footsteps, be the unwitting victim of the power of fate and to once more be filled with the horror (the horror) of the dread of heredity.

The final day of the Premier League football season proved to be possibly the most crazed and nail-biting that any one can remember, with twists and turns of fortune throughout the afternoon.  I, as a classic Man U fan (never been to a home fixture etc etc – you know the sort) was offered the chance to watch the excitement on TV, but I instead opted for an afternoon in the garden with the radio to give me the pictures.

Sarpo Mira

I could not help noticing the similarity with 1966 when, on the day that Enlgand had a chance to lift the world cup, my father could not stand the tension of the moment and instead spent the afternoon digging in the allotment.  I have never been able to understand how he missed the greatest moment in England’s footballing history.  And yet, as I planted cosmos and nasturtiums this afternoon while Man City did their best to refuse to accept the title from united, the parallels were too close ignore.

In my defence, it was about the best day of the year so far, and the simple matter of being outside instead of in was overwhelmingly attractive.  So an afternoon spent planting flowers – nasturtiums, cosmos, cornflowers and Nigella – into the borders to brighten them up later in the summer.  And I will forever look upon the lavender beds next to the sundial with mixed emotions as it was there that I was weeding when City scored twice in the dying moments to clinch an amazing victory.

Elsewhere, the potatoes are really shooting up, with the parsley also actually arriving at the party, after weeks of sitting miserably in the wet cold soil.  I am beginning to get some idea of the variations in germination for plants.  All pretty basic stuff, but I did not realise how long the parsley – which has seeds like large bits of grit – would take to sprout compared with, say, the radishes next to it.  But it has finally done so.

Belle De Fontenay

Meanwhile in the greenhouse, extra ruby chard I planted has just sprung up, compared with pin points of ruby in the beds, while the brussels and purple sprouting are jumping out of the soil in their seed trays.  I might have to do something similar with the parsnips which I sowed, as per the packet instructions, one per 30 cms in rows outside, only to be solemnly informed by my “gardening conscience” (the old man) that parsnips have  notoriously poor germination rates.  So I am thinking that I might have to wait months only to discover that I have one parsnip to last me a year!

Never mind, I think I will plant some in

Arran Victory

seed trays, in newspaper cones (I am advised on Saturday night by Piers and Hazel), so I can transplant easily.  Might do the YouTube video “how to grow parsnips in paper” or some such title.  Or maybe I will just sit outside avoiding telly, watching the garden grow – and all those different potatoes.