Garden Centre

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Greenhouse sowing

We’re off! This year I overwintered my sweet pea seedlings from the autumn, so they didn’t need to be sown, which is usually an event that takes place in the last week of January: my son was born on 29th January and when he was a baby we used to call him sweet pea, so it’s become a tradition to sow them around the time of his birthday. Not this year though …

Instead I’ve started off the broad beans and bush beans and the purple Ipomeas are also in pots. I am only sowing to give the plants away this year, as it keeps the seed viable and as long as the people I give the plants to give me back a couple of dried seed pods, I shall be able to keep my stock going until I have somewhere to plant them again.

The little bulblets that I took off the parent bulbs when I lifted them and put them in storage over the winter are all fine – one or two have even begun to put out green growth in their trays of compost which is surprising as they are way too small to have stored enough energy to flower and survive. I suppose the really mild winter has had an effect on them too.

In the garden I’m having an anxious wait to see if the perennials I bought last year will survive – the Romneya looks okay, the Astrantia has vanished completely (but then, they always do) and the Echinacea appears to still be alive although OH, having seen it in flower in somebody else’s garden last year, muttered something to the effect that he won’t be at all disappointed if it doesn’t make it through into bloom in ours this year!

Labels: astrantia major, broad beans, bush beans, ipomea, romneya coulteri, sweet peas

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:43 AM

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