Sunday 2 March 2014

Planting 'em up

Last weekend we sat down with our box of seeds for a big sort out. We've thrown out quite a few unfinished packs that were several years old (one of the reasons we think for our poor runner bean harvest last year), and this is what we were left with:


Lots of sweet peas. Anyone who followed our harvest updates last year will know we had great success with these, and had bunches through the house all summer. At the weekend we planted loads again; half a dozen seeds per yoghurt pot. Later on we'll plant one pot per supporting pole of our teepee and then find willing friends for the pots we don't have space for.


We also had some nasturtium seeds. We've tried both planting these straight out and starting them inside with similarly prolific results regardless, so we've decided to go for the lazier option this year and we'll sow these outside in a few weeks. To finish off the flowers we have a mix of annuals. Again, we'll plant these all straight out later in the year.


We found the remains of last years salad seeds - a mix of different leaves plus some rocket. We'll be putting all of these to good use once spring has properly sprung.


A collection of herb seeds also came to our attention. We hadn't done much with herbs last year but decided to give these a go. Firstly some basil mats. These were several years old and should really have gone on the rubbish pile but we decided to give them a chance. To join them we have some slightly newer coriander, parsley, chives and basil seeds (yes, more basil). These have all gone into old yoghurt pots for now, hopefully they'll provide us with nice fresh herbs all summer.


Finally, we also planted our broad beans and peas. These have all gone into plugs made of newspaper so we should be able to plant these straight into the ground, plugs and all, in a few weeks.




All our seeds are currently sitting in our conservatory in lieu of a greenhouse or cold frame. It's not as warm as the rest of the house so makes a good gardening room for the moment.