Planting a la Tigger

Tuesday evening, April 23rd 2013

I've been planting seeds since I was a child, but there was somewhat of a hiatus during the years that I was scatting between homes and generally not being anywhere for enough of a growing season to tend to said seeds and subsequent plants. That said, during said hiatus I somehow accumulated quite a collection of seeds from moments of being in shops and thinking "Oooh! I could plant some seeds". A noble response, but one that resulted in a purchase but no planting.

Until now.

Since my move to full-time living in Morecambe I've started dabbling with various growing opportunities but it's only in the past couple of months that I've really engaged with the prospect of planting things from scratch. But now that I have, and faced with a whole bunch of seeds, my approach is simple: if I've seeds, and soil, and pots, and saucers for said pots...I'll plant seeds! Over the winter I would occasionally contemplate planting plans and avidly read up on what should be planted when but that all rather went out of the window when I realised it was mid-March and I still didn't have a plan. And, I confess, I hate getting cold fingers. And my fingers have a habit of getting very cold very quickly - even in the luxury of my basement. So until the weather changed from "bloomin' freezing" to "mild" a couple of weeks ago, my best efforts were generally thwarted by Cold Finger Syndrome after about 10 minutes.

But no more! I have a rapidly multiplying selection of pots and containers, primarily around my house, which I'm gradually planting up with all sorts of goodies. The long term plan is to focus on perennials but the pragmatist inside decide that given I *have* a bunch of annual seeds and I *don't* have a bunch of perennials, I'd start with what I've got and go from there. If nothing else I can test out which window ledges promote the speediest germination / growing / harvesting opportunities. I've even managed to plant out some of my earlier plantings (the first things to make it into pots were some garlic cloves which were merrily sprouting of their own accord...seemed a shame to waste them!) and the tubs (bath-tub included) that got some attention back in February are showing great promise.

I must confess I'm now incredibly impatient, especially for the inordinate number of leafy greens that I've been planting, to get to harvesting some of these little wonders. Just as a watched pot never boils, it appears a watched trough never grows. Particularly interesting because the courgette seeds I potted up have gone into full-on sprouting mode since I haven't been able to check on them every day due to a house guest. Whether it's REALLY because I'm not watching them, or actually because they've decided it's finally warm enough to make an appearance is neither here not there - the point is they're GROWING! I've certainly got a lot to learn about optimising my planting and the joy of harvesting is still a fair few moons off (although the herb tubs - parsley and chives already in plant form, plus basil and coriander in seed form - for my kitchen are partly ready for use) but it really is exciting. And is reminding me of precisely how awesome photosynthesis is.

Linked in to all this I purchased a water butt a couple of weeks ago which I've been meaning to install. After a couple of weeks of fairly dry weather the rain looked like it was making an appearance last week so I went for a low-tech install (put water butt under drainpipe...watch it fill) which has provided me with many gallons of rainwater. Which is great - but means that before I can do the PROPER install I'll need to empty said water butt. Possibly not my wisest move ever, but it's already saving lots of water - both in the multitude of potted plants I'm generating and because I've taken to carrying buckets of it up to "flush" my toilet with. It's the simple things - but why use treated water when I could be using rainwater?

As much as I'd love to have acres and acres to play with, and already be getting the hazel and willow whips shoved in the ground for the magic maze, I must confess my mass-container planting experiment (with some bonus outside space to use as well) is probably the best for my learning curve. We shall see!