One Man Went to Sow

The Crab Apple tree coming to blossom

I used to work in Soho, now I just sow and hoe.  OK we've got the outrageous pun out of the way, on with the show.

The minimum temperature has remained well out of the danger zone (i.e. freezing)  long enough for me to throw caution to the wind and start sowing seeds outdoors in earnest. Beautifully dark purple centimetre-long French beans are now buried in serried rows, four abreast. The off-white tiny knobbly seeds which have the spinach gene encoded within them have been packed in tight rows just a few centimetres apart, as none of them will grow very large before I snip their baby leaves off. They will all have another couple of goes at growing back, thus hopefully providing me with a plentiful supply throughout the summer.

A young oak in the wilder part of my plot

In another raised bed I've followed a similar strategy with salad leaves – a couple of types of lettuce, naturally, but also cultivated rocket, chard, and mizuna. This latter leafy plant hails from the oriental shores of Japan and is apparently pretty useful when attempting to grow salads in the autumn or winter as it, along with several other Japanese salad veg, seems to thrive in those cooler and shortening days.

 

My garden showing signs of new shoots of growth

I found a packet of mustard seed I'd acquired at Seedy Sunday back in March and decided to sprinkle it on the area ear-marked for my leeks which are still slowly growing in their cell-trays in the greenhouse. Mustard is a fast developer and so it should have sprouted in two or three weeks. Rather than attempting to harvest it I'm planning just to dig it all back into the soil a little while before the leeks get planted out, which gives the worms more to eat. The happier the worms are the better. This technique is using mustard as a “Green Manure” (as it's known in the gardening trade) which to me conjures up an image of a defecating cow that has something badly wrong with its gastric system.

 

The Scots Pine plantation can look a little spooky

Yesterday the temperature soared as the sun beat down mercilessly on all those of us toiling in the field. I took the opportunity whilst the soil was warm to sow more seed – beetroot this time, and runner beans under their recently-erected bamboo frame.  The garden is pregnant. It's hard to comprehend that simply by placing these small seeds a little below the earth and adding water, they will somehow realise that it's time to mutate into huge plants a hundred or thousand times larger than they are. And they do it in a matter of weeks.

 

Acorns I planted last autumn in leaf mould, of which two are now sprouting

Once they have done so, they will be merrily robbed of their edible parts by, well, me, which I will then attempt to hawk at various outlets for hard cash. On Monday I spoke with the head chef at the Brigand's Inn, a gastropub just a mile down the road, who it turns out is very keen to use local produce and would much rather use whatever I can offer than importing veg from miles away. Hopefully if we can come to an agreement on price, a discussion yet to be had, this could be the closest and most convenient way to sell my wares.

The brambles I cleared last autumn finally bite the dust. And become dust.