After being given some seeds from Brian (and lots of advice) I have spent a very wintry morning in the polytunnel sowing.
The seeds have been sown in an old wormery section. Good depth and size. The drainage is obviously excellent too.
This is the heated bed that I have constructed. Only used to remove chance of frost.
Hope everyone has had a lovely new year and ready for the coming show season.
Dave Hardy
Dave,
Love the plunge bed! Great strategy that will help mitigate the wet/dry cycle as well as temperature fluctuation.
Two ideas worth experimenting with for seed sowing:
Timing – Grant Mitsch always said to “sow seed by Labor Day.” That is the first week of September here in the USA. Sowing sooner may have an advantage over later sowing. Here, in my climate, I notice almost complete 100% germination when things are sown almost directly from the pod into the seed rows. Seemingly there are far fewer 2nd year germinating seed with earlier sowing. This year, try and sow a few seed pods directly into soil as they are collected.
Sowing depth – In my opinion, deeper is better when sowing seed outside. I now sow my seed at a depth of between 2 1/2″ and 3″ deep. It seems to me that deeper sowing yields seedling bulbs that form fewer contractile roots which “pull” the bulbs down to optimum depth. My opinion is that forming contractile roots takes some growing “oomph” (heavy duty scientific term) out of the seedling bulb which might translate to longer time to maiden bloom. I do not notice as big a difference in contractile roots forming when the seed is greenhouse sown.
Even with no published scientific fact to back up the above, both ideas are worth giving a trial in your glorious climate to see if either might make a difference!
Steve
Thank you Stephen for your advice and comments. I am very new to all this and any advice is greatly received. They are all species seeds and hoping to build up a collection to work from. I have been extremely impressed with the photos you have added recently.
Hi Dave,
I agree with Steve about earlier planting. I used to try to get seeds planted by Labor Day, but now plant as seed ripens. I think the germination is better, though I’ve never documented it accurately. It will be interesting to see what kind of germination you get in your climate.
Mary Lou
I appreciate that this is the wrong time of year to be sowing but only got the seed this week. Brian found some and i decided it was worth sowing and seeing what comes up. Probably will have to wait some time but patience and gardening goes hand in hand.