Seeds – My Plenty Food Project

Shedding light on it….

Tiny patchwork of seedtrays under the growlight

I may have jumped the gun too soon by starting off a lot of seedlings in February – seduced by that week of almost summer weather – time will tell. But my thinking was that if seedlings didn’t germinate or did but seedlings failed to thrive then I would have time to have a second try in March or even April. And I also thought that I may have my polytunnel up and running and providing a sheltered haven even for those crops destined to grow to maturity out in the raised beds.

The burgeoning number of seedtrays soon outgrew the kitchen windowsill and I gave over my spare bedroom with two very large flat trays covering the bed and those seeds such as peppers needing some bottom heat found a home on top of the wooden cover of the radiator. Despite a couple of failures (chives!) I was very happy with the germination and took great pleasure in stroking the tiny seedlings to encourage strong growth. But soon they started to show that what they really needed was light and they were growing at ever increasingly acute angles towards the window, probably not helped by worsening weather and greyer days. I took to carrying a lot of the trays outside during the day and back upstairs at night and then leaving some hardier types (kales and cabbage) in my lean-to which had some overhead light and a little protection. But the daily transportation of the seedtrays quickly palled and I also need to reclaim the bedroom for human use by the end of the month. So what to do?

Well as overhead light was what they seemed to be craving it seemed that a growlight might be the solution. I have to confess to getting a little confused by both the websites and Youtube videos I watched as to what size of light I needed. But finding myself close to a hydroponics shop last weekend I went in to see what type of lights they stocked and what they might advise. I don’t think most people shopping in such shops are actually allotmenteers interested in growing vegetables. I think its another leafy crop they are keen on propagating 😉 The shopkeeper was knowledgeable about the products but not so able to advise what was best for my situation. But I walked out with a large 125W CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lighting) bulb giving out 6400K (Blue spectrum light) for about £20. For some reason I couldn’t quite fathom it didn’t come with a lampholder and plug. I wasn’t sure that I wanted a reflector as thought I could make something suitable from cardboard and foil! But when I got home and researched online for an E40 size bulb holder and method of mounting the bulb it soon became apparent that a reflector would provide the socket, lead and plug and a means of suspension with handy loops on the top. So that’s what I went for with a side order of ratcheted cord hangers.

On Thursday it rained on and off all day – but what did I care? I spent the day sorting out my new growing room 🙂 Previously known as the ‘shed’ it’s actually a breeze block built structure and has electricity if no water supply. It’s got some free standing shelving and a fixed bench which I use for my potting. It also housed a certain amount of junk! But a couple of hours chucking out the rubbish, reconfiguring the shelf units and I had space for the light and for an array of seedtrays on the floor. The ratcheted cords allow me to hang the light at differing heights. My understanding is that it could be placed very close to the seedlings but I’m trying it at about 1.5m to give light coverage of the area I have. I’ll monitor it carefully over the next week or so to see if the seedlings are growing straight and staying healthy. Luckily my tidyup of the shed had unearthed a timer so at the moment I’ve set it to be on from 7am to 8pm but may make this a little longer. There’s a window in the shed which I can see from the house so I can tell its on and working. There’s also some glass bricks in the rear wall but I’ve blocked these off – I back onto a park and I don’t want to advertise that I have a growing room in case it attracts unwanted interest from those who think I might be producing something more exciting than green leafy vegetables 😉

I’ll be monitoring the growth of my seedlings over the next few weeks and hopefully if the weather warms up again I’ll be able to move them out of the growroom and into either my lean-to or my polytunnel (when I dare to put the cover on) before being planted out in late April onwards. If all works well next year I may be tempted to make a start with seed sowing even earlier in the year…….

Jan/Feb sowings

When it’s cold or wet outside there’s a limit to the amount of time I want to spend on the plot on preparation of beds or other infrastructure projects. And lack of forethought and loss of my polytunnel in the autumn mean that I don’t have a lot to harvest – now limited to cavolo nero, celeriac and parsley! So what other gardening related tasks are there that I can use to distract me from work?

I spent some time cataloguing my seeds (I’m a tad nerdy!) and then decided the best way to store them would be in order of their sowing dates. So I made 12 dividers that would fit into my storage box and dropped in the seed packets in the appropriate month for first sowings. For crops that I want to succession sow as soon as I’ve made a sowing I can just refile the packet in the following month and then it’ll be good to go again.

Last year I didn’t take on my plot until 1st April and had only known for certain a couple of weeks before that I was getting one so my early sowings were both not very early but also a little haphazard and not planned. I was then somewhat thwarted by a very wet April and a badly drained plot so didn’t get the best start. I’m hoping to be more organised this year and ready to go just as soon as I can.

I am a tad nervous about starting seeds in January and February in case they end up too far advanced before the weather is kind enough to plant them out. But hopefully my polytunnel will be finally in place and will provide a temporary home even for those crops destined to be grown outside in my raised beds or borders. But as I’m also nervous at my ability to successfully germinate and grown on young seedlings by starting early it gives me time for second sowings if/when the first ones fail. But one of the main reasons for wanting to start early is simply one of logistics – I don’t (yet!) have any heated propagators so my seedlings live on my kitchen windowsill and my spare bedroom. If I can get some of them ready to move on into the polytunnel or my garden lean-to before the main sowing months of March and April it will ease the pressure on limited space.

So what did I sow in January and have planned for this month?

Peppers for sowing in February

Babingon Leek Bulbils

Trying out nursery bags instead of plastic pots

Broad Beans – Karmazyb

Flowers too

Seeds for February Sowing

January sowings:

Babington’s Leeks
Leeks – Musselburgh, Stocky F1
Aubergine – Rosa Bianca and Black Beauty
Goji Berries
Kale – KX-1
Caucasian Spinach/Hablitzia Taminoides
Peas – Kent Blue, Charmette

February sowings:

Peppers – California Wonder, Unicorn, Grueso de Plaza, Bendigo
Chilli Peppers – Padron, Early Jalapeno, Hungarian Wax
Tomato – Brandywine Black, Purple Ukraine, Chadwick Cherry, Iraqi Heart-shaped, Green Zebra
Hops
Peas – Kent Blue, Roi des Conserves
Broad Bean – Karmazyn
Red Orach
Broccoli Raab
Celeriac – Monarch, Giant Prague
Shoo Fly Plant
Tiger Nuts
Parsnip – student (trying these in loo roll inners)
Welsh Onion
Crow Garlic
Beef & Onion Plant (Toona Sinensis)
Asparagus
Flowers – Aquilegia, Hollyhock, Echinacea, Cosmos, Zinnia

Most of the above are destined to be grown to fruition (hopefully!) on my allotment plot but some will go into pots in my garden. My front garden is very neglected and is mainly covered with small slates so not much growing. I’d like to get some more pots of flowers and maybe even some edibles out there too.

When it comes to sowing seeds I am still unsure as to how many to sow. I am still (overly?) enthusiastic about trying out lots of different varieties and hopefully giving myself an all-year harvest. So I may only want to grow small numbers of each type of plant but it seems hard to only sow 3 or 4 seeds of each type. So I’m not going mad with vast numbers of seeds but am probably growing more than I need if they do all germinate and grow on to suitable plants for planting out. But my intention would be to pass on to fellow allotmenteers & other growers. I may even get some swaps – and then have to try and squeeze them. But all that’s looking ahead. For now I’m just feeling content starting to see my windowledges filling up and the first few shoots from my January sowings.

Aubergine Rosa Bianca

Garlic chives

A growing addiction?

Laid up with a bad back recently (an unfortunate cycling-related injury – something went twang as I stood up after locking it up!) I decided to have a go at sorting out my seeds. Before I knew it I had opened up Access and was putting together my very own seed inventory and database – how nerdy is that? I was somewhat horrified to discover that I had over 120 types of seeds – is this usual?

I did only take on an allotment in April last year so I seem to have accumulated these packets in a fairly short space of time. And they don’t include the empty packets from varieties that I grew and used up all the seed this year. So where did they all come from? And what am I going to do with them all? Surely I can’t find space to grow that many varieties – and if every seed was viable I would have enough for a large market garden.

In my defence I didn’t buy all of them. My neighbour gave me quite a number of packets surplus to her requirements – many of them ‘free gifts’ with various gardening magazines. They were either varieties she didn’t like or types of vegetables that she had no interest in growing. I’ve had a few given me as presents – including a couple from my son after visits to a Cornish garden and Kew gardens. And they do include some seeds I saved myself last year – including two types of tomato I grew in the garden, pepper seeds from a green pepper my neighbour gave me to taste, french, runner and field beans I harvested on the allotment and several types of squash from fruit I’ve purchased from my local farmers’ market. But the majority I have bought myself either online from a variety of seed companies including small independents such as Real Seeds, Incredible Vegetables, Tamar Organics and Norfolk Cottage Gardens; or from garden centres and some bargains from the Malvern Autumn Show. Plus my six choices and a surprise freebie from my first selection from the Heritage Seed Library.

As I’ve added each type of seed to the database I have also been allocating space to the crop on my garden-planner. And adding the particular variety and any notes about it to the plant list. I intend to use the growing chart the planner produces as I probably couldn’t produce anything as good, let alone better, from my own database.

I’m reconfiguring some of the layout of my plot to allow for the hopeful restoration and resiting of the polytunnel and in the hope that I will finally get my shed erected. And I am trying to use the data about planting and harvesting dates to make some sensible decision about succession planting to make the most of the space and number of beds I have available. But trying to find suitable spaces for the sheer numer of varieties I really want to try is proving challenging! And I do have a nagging question at the back of my brain about how many vegetables I can actually eat! And fairly soon I will have to face the very vexed question of just where am I going to find space to get these seeds started – they’re not all going to fit on my kitchen window sill 😉

Is this normal – or am I becoming a secret hoarder of seeds? Am I making a newbie error behaving like a kid in a sweetie shop? Will I regret the error of my ways when I start looking closely at the sow-by dates? Answers on a postcard please….. 😉

Giving peas a chance…

For someone that doesn’t normally eat a lot of peas I seem to suddenly have a lot in my seed stash for planting in 2019. I do have childhood memories of eating peas straight out of the pods on my Mum’s allotments and enjoying them this way much more than eating them cooked and served with my Sunday lunch a couple of hours later. In later life shelling them seemed to be a bit of a faff and why bother when you could either have mange tout or sugar snaps – or frozen peas. And I do like a tub of mushy peas with my fish ‘n’ chips 😉

I didn’t have much success this year – possibly due to the hot weather – with the varieties I grew: Charmette (dwarf petit pois), Rosakrone (tall) and Golden Sweet (Mange tout), all from Real Seeds. The latter was particularly attractive though and did crop for a long time even though I indulged my inner child and very few pods made it home 😉 I still have seeds of all these varieties left over and will give them all another try.

Charmette

Kent Blue

Rosakrone

Doug Bray of Grimsby

Roi des Conserves

Parsley Pea

To these I have added Roi des Conserves from D T Brown. This is a tall variety and as the name suggests is for canning or for saving as dried peas. I was also taken by a couple of varieties on offer through the Heritage Seed Library: Kent Blue, which can be eaten as a mange-tout or allowed to mature; and Parsley pea, which produces a mass of tendrils and so I will be growing primarily for pea-shoots. And then to add to my collection the ‘freebie’ surprise packet of seeds from the HSL was yet another pea! Doug Bray of Grimsby is another tall variety producing regular peas.

So a variety of types which should give me a continuous harvest for several months – and will also provide some beautiful flowers to rival some of my neighbours sweet peas with the bonus of an edible crop too 🙂

STOP PRESS:

My first order from Hodmedod came this week and I must have had peas on the brain because amongst the items I ordered are a selection of pea related lovelies: Tinned and dried Carlin peas, Kabuki marrowfat peas, roasted peas (horseradish flavoured!) and yellow pea flour. I shall probably have a go at sprouting (& possibly growing on ) the marrowfat and Carlin peas just to see what happens. Watch this space!