Hardy annuals. The how and the why.
I know, I know. The sun is big and the sky is blue. The grass needs mowing every ten minutes and you have more dahlias than you know what to do with. Late August is for lolling in hammocks, sliding off to the seaside for some of that cold water swimming and very possibly a reviving gin. So why am I telling you to think about next year? The spring that is on the other side of this winter that we know is coming but which feels, on these hot, halcyon days, a very long way away.
And you don’t have to. You really don’t. I have been known (and I will probably again) do all my seed sowing in spring and damn the consequences. Flowers are flowers and if they are for me, for seed or for cutting or for the gram, then it doesn’t really matter when they are out. However, there is something fantastically circle of life of taking the seeds off a flower in one bed and putting it straight into a soft, hoed, prepared bed in one movement of the hand. They were going to self-sow everywhere anyway; me moving them where I want them simply saved me having to step over them for six months when they germinate in the middle of the path.
And the thing about the weather being warm and glorious now and it not feeling like now is the time for seed sowing is exactly the reason why you should be seed sowing. The warmth of the ground, the strength of the sun and the frequent rain that characterises late summer in Somerset means that this time of the year is second only to the height of spring in terms of growing magic. Put a hardy annual seed in the ground now, and they should burst into life, grow into small plants and then sit happily as the cold season comes and goes, and then put out more flowers earlier.
Something I forget every single year is that autumn sown ammi majus comes out at exactly the same time as cow parsley. It is a wasted spot, but I grow it anyway. Oh ok, I admit, it self-sows so technically it decides to be autumn sown.
Direct sowing
I hope I have persuaded you as to the why, and so on to the how. The first option is the lowest input both in terms of your effort and resources. Clear some ground, make a drill with the end of your trowel, sprinkle the seed in sparingly, cover and water.
A note on spacing. I space absolutely everything in rows a trowel length apart. I sow more than I need in drills (I have a lot of seeds…) and then thin to a trowel’s length apart in the drills. Because I am entirely unable to kill a living thing, I tend to replant my thinnings in other places. If you are more ruthless than me, compost them. It’s for the best.
Starting in pots and trays
The second option is for those of us who have beds full of abundance in August. The dahlias, the sweet peas, even my scabious are still going great guns. You don’t want to pull them out and you can’t sow under established plants (no light) and so the way to get around this is to sow in pots or module trays and then tuck them straight in the ground when you have lifted the dahlias or the sweet peas have flowered their last.
There is tonnes of info on indirect sowing in my seed sowing guide which you can download here. A few extra tips though:
I will remind you about the key importance of timely watering.
At this time of year, you can ignore everything about heat mats etc.
If you do not have a greenhouse, just make sure where you have put your seed trays is relatively slug free. I am not above starting them on the kitchen windowsill simply to make sure they aren’t grazed off as the seedlings emerge. My courtyard is great for keeping an eye on things but there is a lot of hard landscaping, concrete etc, and it is very easy for slugs to hide in the cool damp corners.
