It’s February and my seed list is showing me the first things that are ready to be sown. The days are finally lengthening noticeably and that’s a good thing, but for sowing you don’t need warmth, but light! Although this mildly soft winter we are having in the Netherlands probably will help to sow some things a teeny tiny bit earlier when getting impatient. 😉
But first, off to the garden? How is everything down there? I haven’t visited AT ALL during January and can’t remember going up there in December either.
Well, I must admit, it wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. Yes, the strawberry bed is still a massive mess and there are lots of oak leaves everywhere. But hardly a weed. The compost I added as a mulch before winter has kept them out nicely and the worms are having a massive feed in there.
After cleaning up some of the leaves, cutting back the raspberries and weeding two of the beds I have sown the first seeds of Aquadulce broad beans. I will do another sowing of Ratio broad beans later in March to have them available to me for a little while longer. I liked them so much last year! Of course I forgot to harvest the purple sprouting broccoli, but I did manage to get one of the parsnips out. IT’S HUGE! I can probably feed 5 people of off it. And there are still a few more growing. 😀
Since not much else is growing, I won’t do a complete tour this month, but here are my two main overview pictures. In the front you can see my broccoli growing, ready to harvest!
At home things really started itching. It’s time to get ready and start sowing. First I had to wash down all the seed trays and covers. I use a mild dishwasher soap and sodium carbonate to clean all the bits. It’s not about the left dirt in there, but mostly about getting any kind of fungi and diseases out. You don’t want to have your young seedlings struggling right from the start right?
I hoped cleaning the seed trays and the seed window shelves would calm me down, but it didn’t. I want to sow! The only thing I can sow indoors this time of year are the (sweet) peppers. For 2020 I chose 6 varieties and for sowing peppers I like to use the DENO method. First of all because it saves a lot of space, but also you get a higher germination rate.
For each of the varieties I prepped a label (1 till 6), a ziplock bag and some coffee-filter paper. And how this works is fairly easy, you spray the paper with water (not soaked but still wet), you put down some seeds, fold the paper together and put the seed-paper in a ziplock bag which you will zip halfway through. Don’t forget the label! Or to write down which seed goes with what label if you are using a number system like me. And after that you store the seed-bags straight up and somewhere constantly warm. Like, on your modem, media center or in my case on my aquarium lamp controller. You can put them somewhere dark, because after germination the seedlings will be transplanted into soil and put in the light. Keep checking them every several days!
This is how I sow my (sweet) peppers! Hopefully next month I can show you more from the garden and the first pepper seedlings.
How is your garden doing? Have you started sowing yet? Or do you still need to clean up before you can get started? What are you looking forward to the most this year? Any new experiments? Let me know in the comments!
In Florida I’d be out digging and sowing. Here in Michigan we still have snow. Garden starts about March. I no longer start any plants indoors, but that could always change. Bess of success with your garden.
Thank you Bill!
Most of the gardens here start in about March too. But I have some that are good for colder weather, and of course the indoor sowings. It helps with the itch and getting impatient. 😉 Luckily for you it will be March in just a couple of weeks now.