Month: September 2009
Bush beans coming up
Despite the earlier bad news, the first of our bush beans are pushing themselves forcefully out of the ground. They are a week late, so perhaps seed storage in the fridge put them into a dormant state, rather than killing them outright.
One lonely pumpkin has also come up, which I’ve supplemented with two others that have sprung up out of our compost. Spring is definitely here…
The first savoy cabbage
With the unpacking of boxes in our new house, the autumn planting ended up being very late. So quite a lot of things sat in the ground during winter, waiting for some warmer weather.
It was therefore with considerable excitement that we harvested our first savoy cabbage on the weekend. It was huge by our measure, even though it’s really just a baby compared to the store-bought variety.
Still, it made for a very nice cabbage gallete (layered cabbage, baked with a pastry top). We still have 3 or 4 in the ground, steadily getting bigger…
Seed apocalypse
A number of my gardening books, including the Seed Savers Handbook, recommend keeping your seed collection the fridge, to extend its life.
My hard-learned recommendation: don’t listen to them.
As per our previous post, we planted a pile of seeds in seed-raising mix. Still more went into the ground. None have germinated.
It seems that storage in the fridge has very efficiently sterilised my entire seed collection. I suspect it’s due to the cold spots in the fridge that I’ve only recently started to discover.
So this morning, I placed an emergency order of seeds, to get me the beans, tomatoes and other staples needed for spring. Not a massive cost, but a big blow to my confidence as a gardener.
Still, I guess this gets us just a little bit closer to the experiences of a true farmer: one flood or drought later, and you’re left with nothing, wait until spring next year to start again. At least we’re a lot better off than that, and we can get some seedlings to make up for the time lost waiting for the dead seeds to come up.
Right. Round two.
Lewisham House and Farm 