Planting the First Seeds of the Year

Yesterday the rain was relentless, even by the current standards and this morning the garden was soaked through. I was out in the garden early, the sun was finally making an appearance and I was determined to get on with plenty of jobs that needed doing. 

I decided that today was the day to start my seed planting for year. I had been trying to hold off as long as possible as last year my early seeds all ended up leggy and were not as successful as the second batch I sowed. However, one exception to my early seed planting disappointments was the tomatoes I planted, which gave me a decent crop, despite the less than ideal growing conditions of last year.

I planted just two seeds of Super Sweet 100's, which are a heavy cropping, disease resistant cherry tomato. I am hoping both seeds germinate but if they don't I will plant some more. I am hoping to grow two plants out on the front of the house in containers, where it is sunnier than on the back. I will grow beans up against the fence on the back where I grew the tomatoes last year. If the two plants do well they will produce more than enough tomatoes for us to make a good few tomato based dishes to eat and plenty for salads too.

A video of me planting my tomato seeds

As well as the planting the first seeds of the year I did the now routine tour of emptying out the nearly overflowing drip trays full of rain water from the numerous containers on the decking and paved area. All the plants were soaked through and I am sure even they have had enough of this weather. I put some plants out in the sun on the bench to drip dry a little and picked up as many leaves from the lawn and borders as I could. Although leaves are potentially good mulch for the borders, when they get in among the shrubs and other perennials they can block light and also hold moisture around the plants which could potentially cause rotting.

I planted the remaining two Macrophylla Hydrangeas into larger pots and did some light pruning of any dead tips to the stems. Last year I had two large containers into which I put some Begonias and Nerines. As a bit of a novice I planted them too deep and non of the Nerine did anything much and only two of the four Begoinas grew and flowered. Three of the Nerines seemed salvageable so I moved those and the four Begonias into just one container and planted them as shallow as possible to see if that helps them this year.

In another container, last year, I had planted some Ranunculus in a container with some Tigridia and although a few of the Tigridia did come up and flower, the Ranunculus grew leaves and then mysteriously and simultaneously all died. I suspect it was to do with watering but I have plenty of other plants to keep me busy this year so will not try again at the moment. The Tigridia Bulbs seemed healthy and also had multiplied a little so I replanted them together in two small containers and hopefully they shall return stronger this year.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

The garden is starting to look much neater after a day of hard work

I cut back the dead growth from the previous year of a deciduous grass, pruned back some roses and by the end of the day the garden was starting to look pretty tidy. The next step will be to do some weeding and work around the now quickly emerging bulbs to improve the soil.