Seed Sowing Successes

It seems strange, I know, to talk of growing winter crops for the polytunnel or glasshouse, smack-bang in the middle of a very sultry Irish summer. But the simple truth is that the secret to making the best, and most productive use, of these valuable covered growing spaces throughout the year has always been to plan and propagate very far ahead.

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For many home growers, gardeners, and farmers, spring is a busy time in the gardening year. In the period running up to and immediately after the last frost date in your area, you might be sowing a wide range of seeds for your food-producing gardens.

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Blue Sea Holly is a striking, architectural, often silverized annual or short-lived perennial thistle you will want to grow from seed. Often seed in designer gardens, blue sea holly brings a bold dramatic effect to any garden.

As I was ranting, my text buzzed to alert me there was a message, and there was a photo from Ken of a flat of his just-emerged primula seedlings—hundreds of them, that he’d successfully winter-sown outdoors. All for the price of a couple of seed packets. I asked him how he did it, and about other things you can sow that way.Ken, who gardens in New Jersey (those are some of his Primula japonica in his canal garden, above), is the author of 20 garden books and also my co-host of the Virtual Garden Club that we put on a few times each year. He’s a master propagator who loves to crack the code of how to make more plants of any kind. He shared the how-to’s of his success with primula seed

Somehow, miraculously (and thankfully) seed starting season is just about here once again. Perhaps in no other year (or years?) has thinking about starting a garden ever been more essential.

Saturday morning was filled with house chores and food shopping, and the afternoon was filled with a bell ringing competition, so there was no time in the day to pop out in the garden. So on Sunday after a little morning ringing (usual) and then a tip trip (not usual) first thing, when I finally got home I was in the garden for the rest of the day.

I seem to have all my April seeds finally sown in the greenhouses and I’ve also pricked out everything that I can. I’m sure in a couple of weeks time there will be loads more to do. The greenhouses are filling up very nicely and the weather is getting warmer and the days are getting longer so all is good in the world.

Ah, the pungent smell of marigolds – their distinctive fragrance tells me that summer has most definitely arrived.And once summer is at full tilt, I

Summer an important season for sowing your favourite vegetable seeds, and with the weather so nice, it’s the perfect opportunity to start growing your own produce.

After battling finicky allium, ramp, and delphinium seeds this year, I was thrilled when it was time to turn my eye to planting borage.Borage is one of those plants th