Early May

Saturday is forecast gales and heavy rain. Sunday is what is described in the biodynamic calendar as ‘unfavourable’. It means that the conditions as created by the cosmos and the lunar cycle and all of the technical calculations that someone does somewhere has decided that it is generally a bad day for doing anything at all to plants.

Usually, I would be imploring you to keep sowing because successional sowing is how you get joy all year round (If you doubt me, this wonderful early post from Floret explains the downfalls of the boom and bust method of gardening.) but I can’t even say to do that. I think Sunday is meant to be a little more clement and so I will be outside, getting on with these things.

Pricking out

I am going to be spending a lot of time doing this. Technically, I probably should wait for another week for the biodynamic calendar to tell me we are into Northern Transplanting Time, but I have had the most incredible germination rate on a tray of bladder campion which I undoubtedly sowed too thick, and if I leave all the trays any longer, I am just never going to catch up. A how to guide is here.

Pinch out your sweet peas

There are so many opinions on this. Do you? Do you not? Are we going for tall and strong, or bushy and abundant? Unless you are aiming to enter competitions with your flowers, lots of plants will give more stems and more usable stems if you pinch them out. I am actually not that wedded to doing it to sweet peas, but Adam Frost put it on his list at the end of Gardener’s World and I think he’s wonderful, so I am passing it on.

Sweeping up

The weather has been blustery and wet recently, and I do have a lot of beech which is only now shedding leaves. I was also late cutting down some of the bronze fennel and there are stalks around the place, and twigs of hazel from making the sweet pea arch. A lot can be said for keeping on top of pathways and sitting spaces. Psychologically if not practically.

Managing your seed habit; preventing overwhelm

I am at the stage of the season where I thought I had loads of time, I thought I would be all over it, and it turns out I am not. I haven’t dug up and moved all my dahlias yet (and hopefully a whole new lot are coming from Halls of Heddon tomorrow), I have over-subscribed beds and beds that I don’t know what I am doing with yet. You need two things to manage this. Three if you count coffee.

Every packet of seeds that you own in one place.

A drawing or map of all the spaces that you could possibly plant anything.

Firstly,

Go through all of the seed packets. The first sift, get rid of any seed so old that it is unlikely to be viable. A general cut off for me is three years but viability does vary. Carrots, more than a year and you are on shaky ground.  There’s a good list here. Not pretty, but Johnny’s do know their stuff.

Secondly,

Divide into things that you absolutely need to sow now, and things that could be sown in say June, and still flower or reach harvest stage this year. For most of us in the UK, that’s late September but there may be things that just keep going. My asters go to December, as do my echinops. Some Erigeron annuus flowers through until about February. If you are fond of gambling (I am), sowing some annuals in July can reap dividends, but generally, we are firmly in biennials territory by then.

Fast flowers that can be sown later:

• Borage

• Dill

• Nasturtiums

• Viola

• Rudbeckias

Kitchen garden:

• All the kales

• Non-lettuce salad leaves (rockets and the like, lettuce isn’t good in hot weather)

This successional sowing can start to feel like it’s got a bit complicated, although if you know how to do a gantt chart, now is the time to mention it and to share one for the rest of us. The simple way to look at it is to have a general sense of first crop, and second crop.

Thirdly,

Match up each bed or each area with a first crop, and then a second crop. I am going to be mixing and matching lots of things together in a rather simplistic interpretation of permaculture principles and so the list is quite long, but I am following some of the established companion plantings. Having researched this extensively, that basically means marigolds with everything I think. Or chives.

What to do with your first crop pile of seed packets

If you have anything on your first crop list that you haven’t already sown, you will need to get onto it pronto. If you think biodynamics is bunkum, I would suggest today. If you are happy to be guided by the lunar calendar, then this week would be good.

For roots: Wednesday 12 May to Friday 14 May

For flowers: Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 May

For leaves: Monday 17 May

For fruit (includes peas, beans and squashes): Tuesday 11 May

If you have lots of beans to grow, then my optimal bean sowing day is 19 May and I will be doing about ten different varieties then. Note, when mapping out, I need to be careful allocating my tunnels, arches and teepees. I have a lot of sweet peas and I am planning on having a lot of beans….

I would suggest direct sowing now if you are anywhere where the soil is warm enough. If you have weeds growing happily, it’s warm enough. I’d also suggest putting a pinch of every seed packet you have in, rather than doing blocks of only a few. Diversity is good for everyone, not just wildlife.

For the second crop, mark a date in the diary that you are going to sow. Put all the second crop ones in a box and put it away. We’ll talk about what to do with that one when we’ve got this week sorted.