The joy of germination
Germination has occurred!
Many of the seeds I sowed a week or so ago have started to grow and after all these years of growing vegetables at the allotment I still get the same thrill out of it. As the father of four children you might have thought seed germination a relatively minor miracle but it fills me with joy every time. It’s a very welcome sign that spring is not too far away and a new growing season is ahead of us. A magical time.
Not being the most patient of gardeners I started checking my seeds for signs of life about two hours after sowing them. My working-from-home routine soon became, get up, check seeds, shower, check seeds, have breakfast, check seeds, turn on laptop, check seeds - you get the idea.
Sown in the propagator in February
After what seemed like an eternity, but was actually six days, the seeds in the propagator started to show through. First up were a couple of the aubergines, followed the next day by some chillies.
Tiny celeriac seedlings soon followed as did the Ailsa Craig onions. Exciting times!
You may remember from my last post that I sowed the seeds for the propagator in six cell trays. Once three cells or so are populated I remove the tray from the propagator. The little seedlings will now benefit from slightly lower temperatures but need as much natural light as I can give them. Left in the propagator they will become leggy and weak and may well die so moving them to a sunny window sill is a better option. It’s quite possible that more seeds will germinate even at the lower temperatures.
Chilli seedlings
Benefitting from daylight and a little breeze (not to mention a few drops of rain!)
We have been fortunate to have a few mild days recently so I have even been able to put the seedlings outside for a few hours a day occasionally. Not only do they benefit from the extra light but a light breeze helps the stems to strengthen too.
Not so excitingly only one pepper has appeared so far and none of the Bedfordshire Champion onions. When I get no seeds to germinate at all I can’t help but ask myself if I actually remembered to sow the seeds. I think I did, but who knows?
Sown indoors in February
In the conservatory the first thing to show was calabrese followed closely by the cauliflower. I sowed three or four seeds per cell and so far germination is patchy but there’s at least one plant in each cell and that’s all I need. I would thin to one per cell eventually anyway. In a few weeks I will sow more of these for a successional harvest.
It took a few more days before leeks and shallots started to sprout but they are showing themselves now so I’m very happy with my indoor sowing.
Sown in the greenhouse in February
Things are much slower out in the unheated greenhouse but this is to be expected. I was a little concerned that the broad beans and peas might not have survived the sub-zero temperatures we had shortly after I sowed them though, so showing my lack of patience once again I tipped one of each out of their pots to see if there was any sign of life, and sure enough they had begun to grow. Ah, the joy of germination.
A final thought…
As a postscript I thought I might add that as I write this post about sowing and growing this year’s seeds my wife Jacqueline is in the kitchen making soup from parsnips we harvested from the allotment today. Also worthy of note is that she picked the first daffodils of the season from the cut flower patch.