Six on Saturday – March 31st – seeds

So much for the weather improving – it’s been wet, wet and a bit more wet this week (and forecast even more wet over the Easter weekend).

The ground is far too wet to dig, so I had a rummage through my tub of seeds to sort out what I can plant once the weather improves (again)…. here’s my  Six (seeds) on Saturday!

  1.  I’ve grown herb fennel on the allotment for years. I planted it next to the compost bin in the hope the aniseed smell would cover any pongs when the compost bin lid is removed! However, I’ve never grown bulb fennel, so this will be an interesting experiment!

    .
  2. I know I bought a pot of sweet peas, but this packet of seeds is left over from a previous year. I’ve tried growing sweet peas from seed before, but it’s never been successful (the loo roll tubes got so soggy it all disintegrated before the seeds had germinated!). Maybe this year I might get on better….

    .
  3. Runner Beans are a standard sight on our allotment. We usually plant two long rows of them, but during the last couple of years the bamboo canes kept falling over with the weight of the plants. This year we’re planning two long rows again, but this time we’ll only join the bamboo canes together for half of the row, so if one end starts to fall over, it shouldn’t pull all of them over…. I hope!

    .
  4. Our local council-run allotment site allows 25% flowers (including wild flowers), but that limit only counts non-edible flowers…. Nasturtiums flowers are edible (although I admit I’ve never tried them!), so these seeds will be going into my flower patch to work as some ground cover, and also to attract the pollinating insects.

    .
  5. This packet of green manure was probably bought a couple of years ago. It’s a good idea in theory, to grow something which can then be dug in to help improve the soil…. but I think we left it too long before digging it in when we tried before.
    .
  6. And finally, I had totally forgotten we had this packet of seeds! I’ve never tried growing Rocket before, and I think it was the name Dragon’s Tongue which attracted me to this one. Apparently they can be grown indoors as well, so I might try sowing a few seeds in a pot on the windowsill as well as sowing some on the allotment.

Here’s hoping for some dry weather after Easter, so the soil will be suitable to dig! Don’t forget to check out the Propagator’s Six on Saturday and read through the comments section for more blogs to check out!

14 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – March 31st – seeds”

  1. Have you tried germinating the sweet pea seeds between a few layers of damp kitchen roll or tissue paper? Keep the paper moist and put them somewhere dark. Check them every now and again when the packet says they should be germinating, and only plant them when a root appears. I’ve done it with cyclamen seeds too.

    1. I’ve got several raised beds (none of which are really possible to dig because of their size, so I guess that’s an unofficial #NoDig raised bed!), but one is surprisingly soggy, even with a generous helping of grit sand mixed into the compost….

  2. God I hate promoting Amazon but I gave up on toilet rolls years ago having discovered (by scientific experiment) that the cores of different brands performed differently (Lidl’s then own brand was good, Andrex was iffy, Cushelle was a rampant disaster but the loo paper was best for the bum – the “aah” without the “uuurgh as a finger punctured its protective layer). But that’s beside the point, unless you’re a scientist evaluating loo paper or the cores it’s wrapped around, or have a strange fetish which I won’t go into. I now use either https://amzn.to/2uEHbuS (an Amazon link to demonstrate) – if you’re careful you can get several years’ use out of these) or https://amzn.to/2uA4HJw (sorry another Amazon link). These are biodegradable, apart from the staples. which rust down in time, so are use once only. I now use the latter of which I find no evidence the year after apart from the occasional staple.

    1. I won’t ask how many different toilet roll brands you ended up testing out!
      Those root trainers do look a lot more practical – I might have to add those into an Amazon order and see what they’re like. Thanks! 🙂

  3. Nasturtium leaves are also edible, as well as the flowers – very peppery and great in a salad. The other reason for growing them on an allotment is that they attract cabbage white caterpillars – hopefully diverting them from the cabbages themselves. I haven’t fully tested how well this actually works yet, but we’ll certainly find out this year!

    1. I never knew they’d attract the cabbage white caterpillars – I’ll have to keep an eye on that this year and see if they work like that for me too!

  4. Nasturtium flowers are lovely to eat & a nice decoration for the plate as well. I think you can eat other parts, too, but I’ve only eaten the flowers. They’re a win-win plant in so many ways. We usually get caterpillars here that love them, but they’re easy to pluck off. I give them a leaf for their journey & toss them in the green council bin. Hope it dries up soon. I’m going bonkers.

    1. That’s kind to let the caterpillars have a leaf for their journey! I tend to add the slugs and snails to the compost bin, or if I’m feeling very generous, I’ll put them on the rhubarb (doesn’t really worry me if they strip those leaves).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.