Sowing Seeds

This month is a very busy one in the garden. I am spending a lot of time in the polytunnel. I have bee sowing a lot of plants in seed trays which I leave in the polytunnel to germinate ... things like lettuce, amarynth, chop suey greens, beetroot, swiss chard and pak choi. There are a few things that I plant direct into the soil because they are tough enough to survive without the luxury accommodation of a seed tray to start off. These include radish, rocket, perpetual spinach (beet), carrot and a range of herbs. We are building a new raised bed for the brassicas which won't be ready for a while so I'm also planting cabbage, brocolli, calabrese, cauliflower, swede, turnip and brussel sprouts in seed trays.

A month ago I planted three potatoes in the polytunnel and these have already pushed up leaves. I've earthed them up ... that means I've piled some more soil over the emerging leaves to cover them which promotes production of more potatoes. You can earth up a potatoe plant two or three times. These three plants will give us an extra early treat of new potatoes, but I wouldn't plant more than that in the polytunnel as the space is needed for everything else. The rest of the spuds are to be planted outdoors in a lazy bed like last year, but with St Patricks day being the traditional day for planting potatoes we are already a week behind schedule. You see, stress can still exist outside the rat race, it just takes on different guises!

Seedlings that need special care in terms of extra warmth have been sown indoors in a heated propagator on our bedroom windowsill. The plants that need this care to survive include tomatoes, cucumber, melon, aubergine, sweet pepper and chilli. These plants all need a long growing season and so they are started off that little bit earlier than other plants. I have just potted all of  these up into individual pots.  I will keep them indoors on our hallway windowsill for another few weeks before planting in the polytunnel. The propagator is now ready to receive a new sowing of another batch of warmth loving plants, this time sweetcorn, courgette and squash seeds.

Most of the hard work is done now but the seedlings need to be watched closely for a couple of weeks in their seed trays. They are at risk of drying out so I need to check them a couple of times a day when the sun is shining. To lose all the trays now would be a huge set back, so vigilence is required to keep them safe from a variety of possible  calamities ... cats love black seed trays to sleep on, dogs run through polytunnels with glee, hens would scratch through seedbeds and devour seedlings, visiting children unknowingly 'play' with  seed trays etc etc. Its a tense time!!! Going away on an Easter break is not on the agenda, but luckily we have no desire to head off anywhere soon because what we are doing here is so rewarding.

If you are tempted to grow your own vegetables for the first time an easy way to start is to visit your garden centre where they sell seedlings that just need planting into a prepared bed. The initial cost of the plant is miniscule in comparison to the money you will save from harvesting your own crop. Its a great way to dip your toe into vegetable gardening. If you get hooked and grow from seed next year, the savings are even greater. With the way the world economy is going, the rising cost of fuel is impacting on the cost of food on the supermarket shelves and space for food crops is now competing with the growth of biofuels. There has never been a better time to start your own veg garden because as months pass the percentage of your monthly income you spend on food is going rise considerably. If I lived in the city and had a garden I'd be utilising available space to grow edible plants and would be lobbying my local TD/MP to provide allotments for those who don't. If I were designing cityscapes I'd be including fruit trees and fruit bushes instead of pure ornamentals (bravo to Drumsna in Co Leitrim who recently planted up a significant part of their roadside with a selection of apple trees). Are there any urban readers who grow their own? What space restrictions do you have, what do you grow and where? Are there urban readers who would like to grow their own but don't know where to start? Depending on the response I could begin a series of articles on this subject.

Comments

[Susan]

Well, I'm living near to you, nothing like urban: but always in need of more space!

We plant our strawberries and potatoes in stacks of tyres for this reason: as the potatoes grow, we add tyres, until we've forced it a meter or so upwards, making loads of potatoes in a very small space.

The strawberry plants simply get planted in the top of a four-tyre stack, and as the runners form, we let them hang down, instead of sprawling across a garden bed. Cutting holes in the tyres lets them find their own place to root, or we simply trim-and-pot.

And yes, I'm a polytunnel prisoner these days too!

[Deb L]

We live in a small city, in a single home with a lovely yard. We purposefully avoided buying a home in an area with covenant restrictions on what you can do with your yard/home/etc. We just have to make sure we're not in violation of a city-wide ordinance (like, can't have chickens).

But I knew I'd want to garden and have a clothesline at the very least. We've only been here a couple years, so this will be the first year I get any serious gardening done. I'm debating between digging up sod, or building frames and buying topsoil from a local gravel/sand company. I'm leaning towards the frames because that would give me more inches of topsoil to garden in.

I started a compost heap last year, of the "cold so it takes forever" variety. I'd like to locate a reasonably-nearby source for manure to bolster the nutrients and help along the composting process.

Learning where my house and the neighbors' trees cast shade has been important, as well as where the prevailing winds come from. It gets hot and dry here in the summers and a wind will suck the moisture right out of plants if they aren't protected.

One thing hard to do is view my square footage of outdoor space with a realistic eye when it comes to making long-term plans for permanent plantings... things like berry bushes for instance. I'll be getting out my handy-dandy graph paper.

This spring I've ordered a lot of seeds- a variety of vegetables and some herbs, all heirlooms or open-pollinated. I know I don't have enough space to plant *all* the seeds, but I'll be sure to store them carefully, and that will ensure I have more to plant next year even if my hopeful seed-saving doesn't work out.

For my front lawn, I do plan on focusing on a lot of things that look lovely, and keeping it more... *thinks* ... groomed? formal? traditional? so it isn't too grating on the nerves of neighbors. People are pretty laid back around here- one neighbor even has an old claw-footed bathtub on their lawn. I think it's going to be a flowerbed eventually.

I really wish I could have chickens though.

[Maddy]

All that work will pay off when you munch into that lovely veg.

I am on the other end, just about to dig over my patch and give it a good feed of manure and some hay. I will put in some sweetpeas this long weekend too.

I hope you and your family have a very special Easter and that the Easter Bunny brings you lots and lots of lovely treats.

[naturegirl]

Wishing your the beauty of Easter time with the sight of golden daffodils in the sunshine!
sunkissed NG xo

[French Knots]

I try and squeeze some veg into my little suburban garden but it has to fight for space with the dog, children, climbing frame, swings, sandpit, shed for the bikes etc etc! No wonder we're lucky to get one meals worth of potatoes from the number I have room to plant, I'd love to dig the lawn up and make lots of beds but that'll have to wait till the children are grown. I'm on the waiting list at 3 different allotment sites and hopefully I'll get one soon - in the meantime I enjoy reading about your adventures.

[Silvia / Salix]

I just discovered your blog, it's fantastic!
I was googling on raising peas, didn't know if one had to pinch out the growing tips (no, one doesn't) and stumbled upon your blog. I too am growing veggies in my large garden to supplement our shopping, and love it!

[Péitseoga]

We live in the Dublin 'Commuter belt', about 25km from the city centre. our house is in a housing estate, we have about 100sqm garden.
it's quite sheltered and sunny so things grow well.
we have a damson tree, a cherry tree, 2 gooseberries, a red currant, a kiwi, a brand new blackberry (i was a bit skeptical that it might turn into a garden full of brambles!), rhubarb.
we tried potatoes the first year, they didn't do so well, our soil is pure clay (and stones) but i might look into the tyres, or maybe a slightly prettier solution, as we also use the space for BBQs and just sitting out in the summer.
we have a little vegetable patch in the centre of the garden, so it gets plenty of sun, there we grow whatever comes into our heads, we've had spinach, onions, courgettes, ornamental pumpkins, fennel, leeks, broadbeans, lettuces, radishes, etc. we also have a herb border around the small patio, with rosemary, sage, oregano, marjoram, thyme, lavendar, carrots. anything that grows underground doesn't do so well because of the heavy soil, like carrots, potatoes, radishes... we're hoping over the years, as we dig in more compost, it'll get better. we had peas and strawberries in hanging baskets. we're not very scientific about the garden, we just go out and enjoy and experiment. in the future we might try to raise some of the beds, i hope the fruit bushes will survive being lifted up higher, we were gonna do it this spring but the weather was awful and we didn't get round to it in time.
there are no straight lines in our garden, we went for an informal curvy layout. the damson tree makes one centre of a circle, the centre of the patio another, everything else curves and spirals around those, like the herb bed starts narrow at the edge of the patio and curves around, getting wider and the plants and pots in it getting higher, it then widens into the vegetable patch and starts to curve around the small lawn in the other direction, turning into an ornamental shrub and flower bed until it meets the shed.
we don't have many small flowers or other delicate plants as our two pet ducks tend to eat them, but in turn they supply us with fresh eggs and plenty of manure. we didn't have it in our heart to lock them up, i kind of think we should for the garden's sake but then they are so happy having the run of the place!
we have a rain barrel to make sure we don't use too much mains water.

[Jandra]

The reasons why councils don't plant fruiting trees, is because of vandalism. People will ravage fruiting trees in order not to miss out on the bounty of the fruit. I've seen people throw sticks into walnut trees, breaking of branches etc in order to get at the nuts. No patience to wait until the nuts fall. "I want it and I want it NOW!".

They've even resorted to planting non-fruiting horse chestnuts here in the Netherlands.

So we'll just enjoy the fruit trees in our gardens and make sure we have plenty of them. The west wall of our house sports a trained fig and a grape. The lilac in the back garden has been replaced with an aplle tree when it died. And my allotment has about 10 fruit trees. Hopefully we'll have a bountiful crop this year. Most trees were planted last year, so nothing much then. The late hard frost has ruined this year's plum crop, thoug :(

Well, a late comment, but I've just discovered your blog... it's great.

Jandra

[Peter O'Connor]

Hi I've been a follower of your blog for some time - so I thought it's time to give something back - here's an article about our B&B in today's Irish Times - I thought you might someday have a look at the way that accommodation providers are coming up with more ways to attract and keep guests. We do it the eco-way. I'm sure there are others.
Peter ; http://pfiddle.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/flying-the-green-flag-in-waterford/