sowing and sun

Trude, oh yes Trude, Trude Mostue ! Oh yes we’ll take care of that baby bird, oh Trude, little baby bird! And then when she’s off up the road, I just break the little things neck. She bought an ostrich once… I couldn’t do that (breaking neck action with hands) there’s only two ways to kill an ostrich. You either tie a knot… in its neck or, a very effective way, is you bury its head in concrete, right and it thinks its dead and after a week later it actually is dead… FRENCH AND SAUNDERS - STARPETS.

I’m head in the sand right now, ostrich concrete style I’m trying to avoid. Day by day, I say, taking it all day by day, could be worse, will be alright, it’ll all come out in the wash. I’ve just found the last of a Victoria sponge I made last week in the fridge so I am happily eating this as I type to you all.

Today, we have been blessed with blue sky and sunshine, proper stuff so it was out with the washing line. This was my introduction, I hate tumble dryers. The washing line, which is a thick rope of hessian is roped through the garden. On one end it is tied to the quite poorly old cherry tree who’s hope of a revival relies heavily on a rambling rose to accept its branches as a climbing frame and then its other end is craftily tied onto a neighbours smoke bush. I need to go and find a new hazel prop but for now last years is yet to snap. It was the perfect weather for sheets. A little wind and full sun, no need even for pegs which are a bore because they are wooden ones that do seem to mark white bed sheets. It gets harder to dry laundry in a little garden full of pots as the season progresses, I have moved roses this winter, with the thoughts of practical clothes drying in mind!

While the sheets dried I sowed some seeds. I have neighbours who let me use their greenhouse which is very helpful! It is almost falling down but it is still a help but god it is amazing how quickly you can fill a greenhouse up. I remember when I grew the Emma Bridgewater garden with huge effort concerning annual bedding of cosmos, dahlias and foxgloves oh and sweet peas. Looking back I honestly grew thousands of plants each year with huge dedication. The greenhouses being on the top the factories flat roof would get too hot so most weekends between the end of March and the end of May I would work so that my babies would not dry out or get too hot.

I’m doing an event in London in June, news on this to follow. It will require a lot of living potted plants, I could be a bit frazzled over such things as god knows what the state of personal affairs will be by June but I scattered new and old seed packets alike out onto the carpet from my draw of total chaos to decide what should be sown today with the unsaid as of yet event in mind.

Stupidly, I have decided that I want hopefully both opium and Shirley poppies. These will be near impossible but hey ho lets challenge oneself! I love the seeds curated by Milli Proust seeds most are grown here in the UK so they have a more organic provenience and the seed packets are so beautiful they are worth saving to be turned into little notes and gift tags, yes seriously. I know that sounded like a line off a certain someone’s new netflix series and no I haven’t watched it!

Poppies are specs of dust like seed that, if they do germinate, will then resent and sulk at being at all disturbed. I have surface sown them into a rubber seed tray I have. From this, I hope I’ll be able to pop each cell out and then lightly pot them up to avoid them feeling too shifted about, Chelsea show gardens often have poppies so I’ve been researching and it can be done! The key thing is to pot the seedlings on swiftly. With such tiny seeds, it is almost impossible to sow the seeds singularly so as the seeds germinate, you have to be very ruthless and pull out the majority of the germinated sprouts to leave just those perfectly emerging strongly in the middle of each cell to grow on without them being over crowded. I had to do this when I visited my mum last week as she had decided to sow about 15 sweet pea seeds in the same tall plastic pot. The idea was fine to grow two pots of them but there were far too many seeds in each pot for them to successfully grow. I reduced the seedlings numbers to 6 per pot!

This weeks things -

Which? magazine seed compost trial results - compost is dire at the moment and the main reason a lot of us fail at successful seed growing, the compost market now being largely absent of peat continues to struggle to find successful mixes to ensure success at home. A example of this was a friend who had bought a bag of wool seed compost, which would not have been cheap. I was shocked at its poor quality and lack of fine consistency. Luckily Which? magazine has done a trial of seed composts and the results are in with some surprises. Personally, I like Melcourt composts but these are not mentioned as the top few mixes so perhaps these are either not good vlaue or did not heal worthy results.

Coming 1st for value and seed germination with the trial concerning the successful germination and seedling growth of both a petunia and a tomato is - coco and coir all purpose compost, it is on amazon but I am trying with difficulty living in a rural area with no car to avoid using amazon so here with honesty is the link or you can buy it via the company website here - coco and coir compost

. I have not bought any but I am tempted. It comes oddly (to me) as a compressed block and you then add water to this and it all expands to become like a traditional bag of compost! Other top results came from -

Fothergill’s enriched seed compost

moorland gold seed and cutting

westland john innes peat free seed sowing compost

also concerning soil - Moles are in action now so gather up those mole hills that are of a good crumbly hummus rich look like brownie mix. Don’t use these for sowing seeds or potting things on but do use them if you are planting shrubs or roses into containers, mixing equally with a good multi purpose compost and organic farmyard. manure.

Podcasts - Trinny Woodall and Dame Prue Leith - I adore both these women so it was lovely to listen to Prue and of her journey, especially of her cooking posh sandwiches in a London bedsit with lobsters in the bath, that luckily her landlady did not notice, real grit and honesty! listen here

best Arthur x