So, I’m preparing myself to plant some veg. Now, plants growing – I can handle that. I’ve always been around plants whether they’ve been in pots on a windowsill or in a garden. I had a mom who knew about plants and taught me how to make cuttings, how to use rooting powder, when rooting powder wasn’t necessary etc. So, I know how to plant and I remember my high school biology and the xylem and phloem in plants and why you should only handle seedlings by their real leaves (and not their seed leaves) and never by the stem.
But there’s something different about growing herbs and veg from seeds and not just flowers. There’s a bit of pressure – this is food. So, I’m gathering myself together to start sowing my herb and produce seeds. I’m trying to decide what to do and what to plant where.
I’ve got the seeds and I get the instructions on them, but the climate in this region of Scotland is not the same as England for example. I’ve learned with my usual flower seeds that if they say to plant out in April, up here you’d plant out in May. The weather warms up about a month later than down South. So I’m going to have to go with my gut on this one. The beginning of April saw gales here.
My cold frame isn’t quite ready yet, maybe in a couple of days I’ll have it. But right now, I needed to transplant my Nasturtium seedlings – I needed to thin them out into their own little pots. They were way too big for the seedling container now and I couldn’t wait on those cold frames. So I transplanted them and I left them to overnight in my garden shed. It’s not a fancy shed or a greenhouse or anything, it’s just a little shed with a potting table and a couple of windows.
They survived! The weather wasn’t due to go lower than 6⁰c so I figured they’d be okay. I’m glad I was right. Whew! What a relief.
Produce seedlings however are a totally different story. I can’t take chances with them. So I might have to start making plans now, before the weather calms down.
I have some chilli seeds, some rocket and I’m also going to try to grow garlic from garlic bulbs for cooking bought from the supermarket. I know they will probably flop and they’re not proper seed garlic bulbs (seed bulbs are disease resistant and they’re meant for growing, as opposed to garlic bought in the supermarket which isn’t guaranteed to grow and is really a product) but it’s an experiment, I’ll give it a go!
I’ve grown chives, kidney beans and the odd avocado seeds bought from the supermarket (as most kids do in primary school) so I know things can be grown from the supermarket, but I’ve never stuck with these experiments and waited to see if they’d bear anything. I know people who have done it with tomatoes and strawberries from the supermarket.
I have lots of seeds to plant for the veg crop – turnips, carrots, potatoes, leeks, onions, rocket (and more herbs) – and the lovely hubby is digging the beds for them. We’re addressing the sheep issue and protecting the patch around the house from the 3 gallivanting sheep that always seem to break off from the group and head to the garden. They’re not eating my flowers this year!
So there’s a lot of digging going on here at the moment. I’m digging flower beds and drain ditches and the hubs is digging veg beds.
‘Watch this space’ never had a truer meaning!
