Tag Archives: Seed Sowing

Dreadlocks the time is now

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It’s been exactly a fortnight since we lugged that bag of seed compost on two buses from the nearest B&Q and then sowed various seeds on the kitchen and the upstairs windowsills (post here) but we’re now seeing some action (it’s the tomatoes that are popping up first rather than the chillies). It’s been less time since we sowed the sweet peas (a week perhaps?) below.

There’s people who say they’d rather buy plants than seed as “they haven’t the time” to wait for the seed to grow. They forget after the seed has been sown and it has the right conditions it’s the seed that does all of the hard work in the background. All you have to do is make sure the compost is kept moist and all’s okay. Then all the gardener has to do is get on with their own lives (eat, sleep, drink and be merry) while the seeds get to work. There’ll be a bit of pricking out and repotting in the future but that’s hardly hard work and then the plant will just keep on growing hopefully.

Seed sowing, give it a try, you’ve got nothing it lose and it’s far cheaper. If you’ve got your own transport you won’t be lugging bags of compost on two buses either.

 

 

Sowing is sweet during lunchtimes

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As we’re working from home we do have a bit of an advantage that we can do a litle bit of gardening at lunchtime during good weather. Today as it was on the warmer side we decided to sow a few more seeds. The kitchen window has become a little crowded so we utilised some spare space in the raised beds under plastic out in the back.

The second covered raised bed is starting to fill up too. The celery cut from the base is starting to grow, those volunteer giant garlic bulbs are doing well and we have some parsnips in the middle so we decided to put some pots of sweet peas either side. Hope they like the heat under the plastic as we haven’t had decent sweet peas for a few years now. The below pic is going back a few years but it is inspiring us to have some sweet peas back in the garden again.

The sowing starts here

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We’ve made a start on the seed sowing today. We found our propagator and its lid plus another seed tray the other day and earlier this morning popped to B&Q and got some seed sowing compost for £6 and some of those great pots that allow roots to grow through.

It’s mainly chilli peppers we’ve sown but there’s also some tomatoes too. It’s probably a tad early for the tomatoes but they mention on the chilli seed packets to start them early as possible. With all of this nice weather at this time of year we may as well take advantage of it. We’ll keep you posted when they germinate. Anyone else started yet?

 

Not at all a bit previous

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We’re starting to think of next year’s gardening even if at the moment we wouldn’t want to actually go out in our garden as it chucking it down but it’s never too early to start thinking of next season.

We bought a lot of herb seeds last week to restock up on the pots just outside the kitchen (plus some poppies to chuck in the wild area) and hopefully get a few herb pots going on the windowsill. We’ve just noticed on one of the seed packets that the original common name for Borage was “burrage” or “llanwenlys” a Welsh word for “Herb of Gladness.” We’ve also just found out that the herb is used in the German green sauce known as Grüne Soße or Grüne Sosse. Good stuff!

Remember even if you’ve got a few seed packets in your seed box that may be out of date don’t worry they are worth trying (except Parsley that really needs fresh seed to start germinating). It’s all in the preparation!

Songs to sow seeds to

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Songs to sow seeds to-March

Here’s a nice collection of tunes to accompany your seed sowing this month. It’s an excellent mix tape from Chronixx and Federation Sound as mentioned on the great David Rodigan show the other week.

It features some well known chronixx tracks over some classic rhythm tracks like jah jah jahovah, king tubby meets the rockers uptown, cuss cuss, monkey man, joyride and much much more!

This month is a funny one for seed sowing as it’s still not warm enough to sow everything outdoors but you can give some carrots, beetroot, kale, broad beans, leeks, parsnips, spinach and turnips a go if it’s not too cold. I sowed a row each of beetroot, carrots, lettuce and spinach the other day, if they don’t work, they don’t work and it’s only a couple of rows of seeds wasted.

You can always start these indoors this month: aubergines, herbs including basil and the like, brussels sprouts, cauliflowers, chilli peppers, sweet peppers and tomatoes and what about starting a pot of salad leaves on the windowsill.

It’s still a bit early for spuds but in a couple of weeks time it will be and the gardening season will get underway and we won’t know what’s hit us!

STOP PRESS: Cheers to our mate Ciarán in Canada for sending us a pic of his advocado from seed (and some find looking sage in the background) that have grown all the way through their mild winter. How good is that? avocado

Don’t fear the reaper

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The early reaches of the growing season are now with us (well for impatient so and so’s like myself they are). Growing from seed is easy and cheap, and as the soil outside won’t warm up until later on in the spring I’ve started off some veg and herbs off in trays on my kitchen windowsill.

Most of the seeds for this forthcoming year were obtained on the cheap from E-bay, “end of season” bargains from a DIY shop, free gifts with gardening magazines bought cheaply from the market and swaps from mates but I did make an exception and bought some full-price seeds from the garden centre around the corner alongside some seed compost to keep them in business. Local garden centres are great and brilliant for advice and the staff will get to know what you like so will point you in the right direction when it comes to new varieties and offers etc so you wouldn’t want to see them disappear.

Last night I started off some garlic chives and thyme in a posh seed tray (with a plastic propagator lid) which was given to me by a neighbour who was clearing out his loft but you could use plastic plant pots, old yoghurt tubs with some drainage holes in the bottom or cardboard egg trays just to start off with.

I gave the tray a good clean and rinse out to prevent disease, then filled it with seed compost (which is low in nutrients and has added sand to improve aeration) and firmed it down with my hand. It then got a good soak first of tap water from a spray bottle (which avoids disturbing the seed later) and I let it drain off in the sink to get rid of the excess liquid.

On the back of the seed packet you will find detailed information with ideal sowing date, depth and and position of sowing and I always try to sow the seed thinly as not to waste them and it’ll also give the seedlings space to grow without competition and as a rule, planting depth is about twice the size of the seed.

After sprinkling on the seed and covering it with the right amount of compost, I stuck the name of the plants and the date in pencil on a plant label on its side then covered it with the posh plastic lid. You could use cling-film or a sheet of glass over the top which you’ll take off when the seedlings start to show. A couple of days ago I started off some tomatoes and sweet peas in small plastic seed tray with a plastic sandwich bag over the top (below) which works too. The secret is to keep the compost just moist and not too wet. There, I told you it was easy!