The satisfaction of sowing seeds

There’s a lot of competition for space in the greenhouse this year. My wife Jacqueline has taken on a half plot next to my allotment which she is making into a cut flower patch. She’s way ahead of me with her sowing so when I went to the greenhouse to start off some seeds of my own I found I had nowhere to work and nowhere to put my trays of seeds once sown. The situation was made worse because some of the rather flimsy staging I’d made a few years ago was near to collapsing and unusable so my first job was to knock up some new.

If you’re a cut flower lover you can follow Jacqueline’s progress here.

In true allotment style with some batons reclaimed from a building site, hammer, saw, an old hand drill and a bag of rusty old screws and nails I set about making the staging, doubling the storage area by having two tiers of shelves instead of one. After an hour or two of labour, two cups of tea and not too much huffing and puffing the staging was complete and I have to say I was quite please with it. Now I could get on with the sowing.

It’s too early for sowing seeds direct in the allotment in February but there are things that can be started in the greenhouse or indoors.

Greenhouse staging

In true allotment style the new staging was constructed from materials reclaimed from a building site.

The greenhouse in February

I began by sowing what will probably be my last batch of early variety broad bean Aqua Dulce. I will continue with successional sowings of Bunyard’s Exhibition and Masterpiece Green Longpod. This will allow me to keep sowing through to May and hopefully harvesting from May until July.

Then I sowed two varieties of pea. An early one called Proval, and maincrop Onward. I’m a bit early for Onward but having used up the last of the Proval I thought I’d make up the batch with whatever I had rather than make an unnecessary trip to the garden centre. I’m sure they’ll be fine.

Sow in a propagator

Next I sowed for the propagator. Again I found myself competing for space so I sowed just a few of each vegetable and will do more as the season progresses. I sowed two types of onions, Bedfordshire Champion and Ailsa Craig. I confess that I don’t normally grow onions from seed, preferring the convenience of sets but for the sake of experiment (and because I’ve fallen for various gardening magazines’ free seeds traps) I thought I’d give it a go this year.

I also started some sweet peppers and chilli peppers. The sweet peppers, again from the seed trap I’m afraid, are Friggitello and the chillies are cayenne, a spicy one. I know that lots of allotment gardeners like to grow a wide range of different chillies but I’m happy with just one. I think it’s easier to judge the amount to use in cooking this way.

Another tender crop I started was aubergines. I’m growing Black Beauty which I have grown with reasonable success in the past, though I admit I find them quite hard work for the rewards.

Lastly for the propagator was celeriac. This vegetable originates from the Mediterranean. Although pretty hardy once established they need a good long growing season and are tender when young so an early start with a bit of warmth is required.

In a warm, sunny window

Finally I sowed some seeds that can be happily started on a warm, sunny window sill. You always read that a south facing window should be used but that’s quite difficult if you don’t have one. You can’t turn your house round! Our conservatory has quite a lot of window sill space and faces about south-east. We’ve started seeds and brought on a lot of plants in there over the years. There’s no permanent heating in though so I put a plug-in heater on low to keep the temperature around 15 degrees.

I sowed calabrese and cauliflower for planting out in the allotment brassica beds later in the year. I did a six cell tray of each. Both will ‘blow’ soon after reaching mature so if too many are sown at a time they may go to waste, so it’s better to sow small numbers in succession.

Musselburgh leeks and zebrune shallots were my final job. Zebrune is a ‘banana’ style shallot. They’re easy to grow, getting as big as a fist in a good year and they are great for cooking. Musselburgh is a good reliable leek that will stand well in the ground over the winter.

With some satisfying sowing done I’ll settle down to several days of checking for germination every few hours.

Happy sowing everyone!