Sow It Begins

With the bit of sunshine touching the bare earth here in Herefordshire I decided I should begin to put a few seeds in the dirt. 

Now it takes a lot of control not to go crazy here, but a few things do well really early, and I like to make a couple of gambles with some seeds. 

The peppers, chilli and aubergines it's perfect to get them in now (I've been trying to hold off). The mini cucumber is an experiment to see  if I can grow a couple of really early plants on the windowsill in our bedroom. The children love the mini snack cucumbers I sometimes get from the shops so they've convinced me to double down on those (I think I've bought 4 different varieties). 

Home Grown Plugs

The other day I posted some pictures on my twitter of my hull less oats being planted. 

I've planted these as plugs. But plugs I grew myself.

Looking At hydroponics

This is a collaborative post.

So following on from my post about conserving water I’ve also been thinking lots about different growing methods and if I’d like to try any others, particularly if they’d be better in a hot summer.

From searches about straw bale gardening, to no dig, to minimum tillage, one that keeps popping up again and again is growing hydroponically.

Straight away I can see one major downside to this, the initial cost of set up. Having a good hydroponic system set up isn’t going to be cheap but once its set up all you have to provide are the hydroponic nutrients, water and a medium for them to grow in and keep the system working.

I remain sceptical about it all but I did speak to a strawberry farmer, who is a friend of my fathers, the other day and he said to me “No one growing strawberries commercially does it in soil anymore, that’s a thing of the past.”

Pea Shoots Shooting

It's hard not to get excited and carried away at this time of year - I love it! 

So far I've got two types to peas coming up (a mangetout and a soup pea for drying) and the broad beans were just breaking the soil today (I could have been so much earlier with the broad beans if I'd been organised!).

In the greenhouse I've also started two types of beetroot, kohlrabi, red cabbage, sage, globe artichoke (coming up today), red Russian kale (for baby leaf), celeriac, coriander (cilantro for you guys on the other side of the pond) and three different lettuce, I'm planing on sowing some carrots as well and protecting a bed with some plastic to get them earlier. 

Who else has gone mad on sowing seeds already?

I'm planning on transplanting most early crops this year to give me a bit of a head start! 

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