Seeds, Seedlings and Young Plants

I seem to have a house full of toilet rolls and egg boxes full of compost and seeds or baby plants of vegetables and herbs and I still have 4 egg trays of potatoes chitting away. On the vegetable side I have Halloween Pumpkins growing at a great rate, Peas not far behind and Sweet corn has started to shoot up. Lots of seeds are just keeping me in suspense, I’m not sure of germination times.

 This week I have sown herb seeds of Motherwort, Wild Bergamot, Chives, Calendula, Coriander, Dill, Lemon Balm and Meadowsweet. I am waiting for the Basil I sowed last week to show itself. I should know what these young plants look like over the next few weeks.

 In the garden most of my herbs have survived the harsh winter weather we had before Christmas. Roman Chamomile is quite leafy, Sorrel has leaves, St John’s wort is doing well, Comfrey has little leaves, my single Meadowsweet has small leaves and Valerian leaves are coming up red at the moment. Marshmallow looks like it is still with us but I can’t find my little violet. I planted some Elecampane root from Sarah but nothing is happening yet. Rosemary, Blue Hyssop, Bronze fennel and Thyme are accounted for.

My first glimpse of Meadowsweet this year

 My herbal ally, dandelion seems to be getting leafier and I seem to have loads of them all of a sudden. The population will start to dwindle as I try more herbal recipes with them.

Dandelions are growing quickly

 The vastness of our allotment 100ft x 45ft has struck us now it has been ploughed and we can start to use it. We have a major couch grass problem and I’ve invited lots of family and friends over on Saturday to have a dig and weed party. I’m sure there is a herbal use for couch grass, I must check before I throw it all away. Hopefully I’ll get some early potatoes planted Saturday which will give me room for more seed-containing toilet rolls of herbs, flowers and vegetables.

Our bare plot is in the centre

Gardening Lesson Number 1

The Heritage Lottery has restored the wall around the allotment and is funding gardening lessons; we get these for 2 years it seems. Each plot has to be looked after by three families, Steve and I have teamed up with Iain and June and Barry and Debbie, we attended our first class yesterday full of enthusiasm.

 Today we looked at types of soil and crop rotation. Whilst I was familiar with crop rotation it was good to go over which plants go into which groups for rotation. On our plot we have decided on four parts to rotate and a fifth part which will have permanent plants in such as fruit bushes. The herbs are to go by the wall in front of the fruit trees.

 We have been chitting potatoes for a few weeks; earlies, second earlies and main crop but we had a new challenge today. Joyce, our teacher, has given each plot a Jersey Royal seed potato (but it can’t be called Jersey as we’re not there) and started a competition to see which plot can grow the most potatoes from it.

Barry with shiny spade & Iain with our competition entry potato

 Our plots will be ploughed again this week and then we can start digging and planting although it is too cold for most plants. Joyce says it is warm enough for planting when you can either sit on the ground with your bare bum for ten minutes or can comfortably go outside without your coat on, I know which method I shall use! She says that from now on we will be much more in touch with the weather and temperature; I love to work with the seasons.

Our plot includes 45 feet of wall from the original Edwardian walled garden which we had decided to grow cordon or espalier trees against. Our trees had arrived; apricot, greengage and sweet cherry and we had our spades ready to plant them but it became apparent as our lesson progressed that we had ordered the wrong type of trees, they needed to be grown from a different root stock so we have had to send our trees back and need to find a supplier of espalier root stock plants. First lesson learnt!

 The garden is organic; did you know a Blue Tit can eat 800 caterpillars in a day? We need to encourage them, I hope they don’t turn to cabbage once they’ve run out of caterpillars!

 We talked about planting seeds using toilet roll tubes or newspaper tubes and when I got home I started on my collection of toilet roll tubes. I have planted sweet corn, courgettes, peas, cayenne chillies, basil and sweet peas but still have lots to do. I’ve run out of toilet rolls so will be following Kaz’s instructions on newspaper pots next.