Last year was a total washout when it came to vegetable growing. The relentless rain and the violent onslaught of slugs destroyed just about everything. It was totally disheartening. So, it’s been a little bit of a battle to get my enthusiasm up for veg growing this year, but my empty beds were looking mournful, and determined not to be forever defeated by mean blobs of slime, I dragged myself out and bought some seeds…
Besides, who could stay disheartened when they have a little helper like this one?
We spent a messy afternoon together sowing seeds, and as if to reward us, I suddenly noticed my garlic (which I thought had died a miserable death over the long winter), had sprung into life. Also, my leek sproutlings (which I’d ignored on my windowsill until December, then threw in the ground on a whim), have somehow survived the chill too and, with the spring sun are having a major growth spurt. Huzzah.
We have so far sowed leeks (yes, I may end up with many, many leeks), spring onions, courgettes and Brussel sprouts, so they are all nestled in the cold frame (strange name for something that keeps things warmer?), waiting to sprout. Slugs be damned!
I’ve never grown many flowers in the garden, as they somehow seem beyond me. They seem to be the stuff of proper gardeners who have some magical secret knowledge endowed upon them. However, some wildflowers caught my eye at the garden centre so I have created a bed for them, along with some alpine flowers (it’s on a slope so alpine seemed a sensible choice?). I’m hoping their wild nature will survive my lack of knowledge, and that they will spread and tangle and create a ramshackle bed of colour. I am definitely in the ‘whack it in the ground and see what happens’ camp… You never know, they might just save the bees.
Are you growing anything this year? Have you started?
8 replies on “Springing Sluggishly into Seed Sowing”
I got down to the allotment to do some digging at the weekend – pulled the last of the leeks to make some space, but last year was generally rubbish. We had a great crop of raspberries, but virtually everything else was awful. Entire tomato crop had blight, cabbages went to seed, the works. We’ve still got more jerusalem artichokes than you can shake a stick at, mind you. The hard bit with them is how to get them to *stop* growing!
Hoping to get more this year – we’ve pruned the plum trees way back and hoping our apples come through better – I think we had a dozen off the tree whereas in previous years we’ve had bucketfuls.
Courgettes are a must! Love love love them. This reminds me that I need to do an allotmenteering post on my blog!
🙂
You do!
Reassuring it wasn’t just my lot that failed. This year MUST be better?! Hoping for more apples and plums this year too. Apples were ok but we totalled 2 plums last year..!
our little plum trees had some kind of brown rot – our fault as we hadn’t cleared all the old fruit off from the previous bumper harvest! We know better now though. 🙂
That is a Good Tip. I had no idea that’s how you got brown rot. Let’s hope we have enough plums to be in danger of it being a problem!
The flower is commonly known as a snakes head lily: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritillaria_meleagris
Ahaa, thank you! You have some of that magical knowledge…!
Last year is best forgotten!
So far this year, I have over-wintering onions, looking reasonable, plus I have planted about 400 onion sets. Autumn sown broad beans were flattened by the snow so a replacement sowing is in the ground, plus a speculative sowing of dwarf French beans. One row of first early spuds are in (Lady Crystal) are in and other spuds ready to plant. Shallots are mostly through and looking OK. The willow is looking encouraging with lots of shoots coming; this will be its second harvest year.
All I need now is an extra day each week for nothing but the allotment!
Haha, yes it all takes a lot of time doesn’t it?! Sounds like you did well despite last year’s hideousness though. Beans and peas are next for me. I am super fussy – only like to eat them freshly picked!