Magic Seeds

Anyone who has ever read Jack and the Beanstalk will be familiar with the concept of magic beans but in my opinion all seeds are magical. They are amazing things, tiny containers of life locked up in storage until the perfect conditions set things into motion.

Last week in Gardening Club I talked to the children about germination (a word they were not familiar with) and we set up some runner bean seeds in plastic tumblers so that they can witness germination for themselves. Such a simple experiment but amazing nonetheless.

At the weekend I stood and contemplated the trays of seeds I'd sown a couple of weeks ago. I don't have a greenhouse and only very little windowsill space so I have to grow seeds in a small plastic coldframe. The temperature in there fluctuates between too cold and too hot and I have to remember to open it every morning and close it every night. I imagine that there are times when the temperature would meet with Goldilocks's approval and be just right but I don't supposed that happens often. On the positive side, the plants that do grow are tough. No namby-pampy greenhouse raised plants here. On the downside, germination is often slower than it would otherwise be and if I get the timing of the opening and closing of the front wrong then the seeds can either freeze or fry and never germinate.

To make matters worse, this year in a bid to be eco-friendly, I sowed my seeds in peat free compost. This is decidedly weird stuff: made from composted bark, it is like a pile of sticks. It doesn't stick together, it smells like a pine forest when it gets warm and every now and then a little crop of toadstools springs up from it. It also has the tendency to dry out completely on the surface but still be nice an damp underneath, making it difficult to judge how much to water it. I reckon it would probably make a great mulch but I'm sceptical that it is any good for sowing seeds in. Despite my reservations I went ahead and sowed brassicas, sweetcorn, cucurbits and tomatoes in this stuff. The brassicas didn't seem to notice anything different and sprung up happily about a week later. A few sweetcorn made an effort to germinate and after 2 weeks gherkins were the only cucurbits to have popped up. No sign of any tomatoes.

If I had sown the seeds in usual multipurpose compost I would have suspected temperature being the main culprit but I was now beginning to wonder if the tomatoes could ever grow in this stuff. So I decided to have a poke around and if necessary sow them all again in other compost before I lost too much time.

I started with the cucurbits because they are the largest seeds and I was surprised to discover that most of them had indeed germinated but weren't quite poking above the surface. Even so, I scooped the tiny seedlings out of the compost and replace it with decent compost before putting them back. Then I tackled the sweetcorn in the same way. Here I think age of the seeds was the main problem as the new seeds had 80-100% germination, whereas seeds from last year or older had 0-30% germination. I replaced the old seed with some more of the fresh. Finally I examined the tomatoes and discovered that they too had germinated so I decided to leave the lot alone.

Maybe next year I'll sow all my seeds in plastic tumblers in damp cotton wool so I can see when germination has occurred! Or maybe I'll just learn to be more patient!

All the potatoes in now

Another beautifully sunny day today but I didn't have much left to do on the allotment. Steve was busy most of the day getting the second early and main crop potatoes planted. He started by rotavating the bed and racking to smooth. Then he checked a couple of reference books to remind himself of the recommended spacing for the rows and between tubers. He's been growing potatoes for about 30 years now but he still likes to check this. Then, as usual, he counts the number of tubers we have, looks at the space available and works out how to fit them all in. Having done this, he then uses the rotavator to dig trenches for each row of potatoes. He carefully places the tubers into the bottom of the trench then buries them with rotted compost from the compost bin mixed with pelleted manure. Only a thin layer of soil goes on top of this and over time we gradually fill in the trench to keep the plants covered until, after repeated earthing up, the trenches become mounds.

I sowed three rows of swede seeds. I grew swede for the first time last year and it grew very well. It is the main vegetable in Branston pickle so last year I made my own version of this pickle and sold the lot! So this year I'm hoping to grow a few more swedes and make more pickle. That's a heck of a lot of chopping though!

My girls had a great time on the allotment yesterday doing whatever it is they do when their imaginations get going. I assumed it would be more of the same today but within about half an hour my eldest arrived at my side saying she wanted something to do because she was a bit bored. I suggested she sowed a few sunflower seeds on her plot so I helped her with this. In the meantime, my youngest had arrived and wanted to know what she could sow. But I had nothing to suggest. We have all the crops sown suitable for this time of year and we're just waiting for the tender crops to grow in pots. When you are 4 years old waiting can be difficult and for a few minutes she nagged some more to plant a tomato plant.

Shortly after this I told them that I needed to pop home to pick up my camera because there were some things I wanted to photograph. They both thought this was a good idea and they wanted to bring their cameras out too. So a few minutes later we returned with our cameras: a Fisher Price indestructible thing for my 4 year old but my 6 year old can be trusted with one of our old digital cameras. Soon it was time for me to return home to start the dinner but my eldest was still snapping away happily so I left her to keep her father company as he continued to plant potatoes.

Sowing root crops

After a gloomy morning doing housework, the sun came out and out we went to the allotment. I started by sowing some carrot seeds. We, like so many others, suffer to some degree with carrot root fly damage. I was reading about ways to tackle the problem in the April edition of the Kitchen Garden magazine but none of the answers seemed satisfactory. It suggested fine netting completely covering the crop as one solution but this brings other problems such as inability to weed or deal with other pests. And if you miss-time the netting then you could trap the maggots inside, free to do their damage without attack from their predators. Last year I tried sowing my carrots with a row of onions for every row of carrots. It mentioned such companion planting in the article but suggest that far more onions were needed to make it work. Well, socks to that, I'm sure it helped.

Anyway, this year I have decided to repeat the carrot/onion planting. It certainly didn't do any harm last year and I want to grow both anyway. I've also decided to sow flowers around the outer border of the bed too. This may add to the confusion of perfumes but mainly it is because I seem to have accumulated a load of flower seed packets and it would be nice to have some flowers somewhere on the allotment for the pollinators.

Last year I tried sowing some parsnip seeds in 4 of the carrot rows. Parsnips are notoriously temperamental germinators so if you sow them on their own, firstly you struggle to remember where the row is whilst the parsnips get round to germinating, and, secondly, the germination is usually patchy and you end up wasting a row for 3 or 4 plants. The idea behind sowing with the carrots is that you know where the row is because the carrots germinate fairly quickly, secondly you don't waste a row because the carrots are there to fill the spaces, and thirdly, once you have harvested all your carrots you have a lovely thinned row of parsnips for the winter. Anyway, this worked so well last year that I have decided to sow parsnips in every carrot row this year. That could result in a lot of parsnips but they are a brilliant winter crop and I love roasted parsnips with a roast dinner.

Carrot seeds are very fine and need a fine "tilth" to germinate well. To help us achieve this in our heavy clay, Steve rotavated the bed for me earlier in the week. Having pulled out "drills" with my hoe, I then sprinkled in potting compost and sharp sand to give a lovely surface for the seeds. If the soil had been dry I would have watered the bottom of each drill at this point but having had 10cm of rain (according to my daughter's rain gauge) in the last two day watering wasn't needed.

Finally it was time to sow the carrot seeds - 8 different varieties - I like variety! This included some purple and some red carrots because novelties like this amuse my girls as much as they do me. There were also the old reliables such as Early Nantes, James Intermediate and Autumn King, as well as a variety I'd not tried before and have now forgotten the name of.

I often sow beetroot seeds in the same bed as the carrots but with room taken up with the flower seeds and onion sets I'd run out of space and I had to sow the beetroot elsewhere. We love beetroot and it stands well until it gets very frosted. The year before last I really struggled to get beetroot to germinate and we had very little to harvest so last year I decided to see what would happen if I sowed some in modules and planted them out as plug plants. They took ages to germinate but it was useful to plant them out well spaced rather than having some bunched together and then large gaps elsewhere as you get from sowing seeds. This year I didn't get round to sowing them in trays so I needed to sow direct. I read recently that soaking the seed for half an hour before hand can aid germination so I have tried this. We'll have to see what happens.

In the same bed as the beetroot I also sowed a couple of rows of spring onions, some rocket, spinach and two types of lettuce. I've also left some space so I can successionally sow more salad leaves over the next few weeks to help avoid a glut at one time and then nothing.

Having done all that I still had quite a lot of onion sets left and it really is getting a bit late to get these in so I needed to get on with it. A quick survey of the plot told me that the best place to plant these would in the bed next to the carrots. On the other side of the carrots I had already planted shallots and a few red onion sets so if I put onions on the other side the carrots would be flanked with onion as well as interplanted with them, surely some help against carrot root fly! Does that sound like a lot of onions? Well, they store well and we use them all the time but they are also an essential chutney ingredient.

The only problem with my assessment was that the bed on the other side of the carrots still had the remains of some brassica plants in as well as a good scattering of weeds. Brassicas, you should know, like a firm soil and I didn't much fancy having to dig over firm soil. Still, it needed doing and as it happened the soil was remarkably soft thanks to the recent rain. So it didn't take long to dig over and then I filled it up with rows and rows of brown and red onion sets.

Time to stand back and admire my handwork I'd say! Things are beginning to take shape!

Gardening with children

The next day the plan was to get out onto the plot as soon as possible in the morning but once again other things demanded attention and whilst I dealt with the housework, Steve mended a puncture on our youngest's bike. So it was after lunch before Steve headed off to the allotment with the rotavator, hoping to make the most of last night's heavy rain.

My first gardening task was to water the indoor vegetables. The tomatoes from Wilkinson's have now reached the roof of the conservatory (no, they aren't monsters, they are on a high windowsill!). After watering them I also had to tie them again to their canes but they clearly need repotting and I'm wondering what is best to do with them before I can safely put them outside. My tray of windowsill salad is now big enough to eat and I really ought to sow a fresh batch to replace them.

Having done that I set up a potting station in the garden and set to sowing some tender crops - sweetcorn, tomatoes, brassicas and cucurbits. At first my daughters were inside, playing on the computer, but it wasn't long before my eldest appeared, asking if she could help. She's a very sensible 6 year old and is actually quite helpful and of course I love to involve her in it. So together we sowed the tomatoes and the brassicas, which turned out well because as she popped in the seeds I could write a label and the whole things was quicker. The labels, by the way, I'd made from cut up bits of yoghurt pot and they work well because they are small enough to fit into the module trays and still put a propagator lid over the top.

Before I had finished my youngest appeared, having been chased out of the house by a confused honeybee. I released the bee and then helped her sow some cucurbit seeds. Then it was time to join Steve on the allotment.

Whilst he continued to rotavate and build more raised beds, I tackled more weeding. With the soil moistened by the rain it was relatively easy to fork the ground over. My new trug proved useful to throw the weeds in as I went. Even my eldest decided weeding looked like fun and she asked if she could help. She stuck at it for about 10 minutes before declaring that it was harder than it looked and gave up. So young to have discovered that weeding is difficult! Still, even 10 minutes of help is better than none. In the meantime my youngest, whose favourite colour is yellow, asked if was OK to go around the site picking dandelions - she guessed that people wouldn't mind if she picked them because they were just weeds. I agreed and off she went, returning later with a beautiful yellow bouquet.

That's the funny thing about gardening with children... don't expect too much but they can provide help in their own way. Of course, what you can teach them and what they can learn is far more important than any help they might provide.