Saturday 9 March 2013

Seeds, seeds, and more seeds

I'm having a wonderful afternoon surrounded by all these packets of seeds of possibilities of things I could be eating in the spring, summer and beyond...  Serge Gainbsbourg is playing in the background and I'm seed sowing in my warm living room whilst another cold snap is starting outside.

A fortnight ago I sowed some chillies and aubergines (2 seeds of each) in my heated propogator.  On the first sowing I've had at least one germination of each seed but for a few the second seed didn't appear so today I've resown a few (cayenne pepper and bangladeshi chilli).

Today with the cold snap on its way I decided to take advantage and sow some seeds that need cold stratification to germinate:  Alexanders (Smynium olusatrum) a parsley like herb and Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis Odorata) interestingly  both from the umbelliferae family (which includes carrot, parsely, coriander and many others that have the umbel flowers).  I've never tried this before so it will be exciting to see a new type of germination.  On the packet it stated that the sweet cicely need sowing on the surface as they need light to germinate as well as cold.

Today was also the day to make a start on the tomato sowing.  Varieties I am trying this year include varieties I've saved from previous years including a variety I saved from the Regents Park Capital Growth Allotment Garden in 2011 (a purple cherry tomato) - I tried to grow it last year but it got blight, luckily tomato seeds can be viable for up to 6 years.  I'm also trying the tumbling tom Moskotka,  Principe Borghese,  Roma tomato (a fave of ours), HSL Ryders Midday Sun, Chadwick Cherry, Golden Sunrise and last but certainly not least Real Seeds Gigante Liscio Vine Tomato.

This week I've also been planning for the future season and after some interesting twitter discussions I placed an order with the wonderful Real Seeds.  There'll be some new additions to the repertoire this year that I am sure I will need the help of some space at the amazing Urban Veg garden to be grown: Yacon and oca.

So lots of exciting prospects for the coming season.

What exciting seeds are you planting?