seeds

The snow and icy winds bought a temporary halt to work in the greenhouse.  I'd almost finished sowing my first batch of seeds before the Beast from the East struck, but ran out of seed compost and wanted some more tomatoes.  I got both at the Clacton garden centre just before the foul weather arrived, following which I would not have wanted to mess around out there, and anyway the floor was entirely covered with pots brought in for temporary shelter so there was no room.

Finally I have got around to sowing the second half of the tomatoes, and it will be interesting to see if they catch up with the first batch, now that the days are longer.  I normally aim to sow tomatoes with heat in February, but March shouldn't be too late to get a crop.  After germinating normally, some of last year's seedlings came to a crashing halt.  Picking the brains of various gardening friends and keeping my eye on any tomato growing advice in the gardening magazines I gathered that young tomato plants are highly sensitive to chilling, so I think that was my fault for removing them from the protection of their covered seed trays too early.  I shall know not to do it again this year, though as there is no room on the greenhouse bench for another tray it's going to be tricky when I prick them out individually.

Two packets of seeds that needed overnight soaking never managed to get sown before the compost ran out, so I did those as well.  One is the drought tolerant, dark red flowered form of a kind of legume I saw and admired at least year's Chelsea, and the other a blue species lupin.

Progress among the previous sowing has been slow, apart from the tomatoes.  I have a pot of nice little seedlings of the snowy woodrush, Luzula nivea, and some sturdy little plants of a species of Macedonian sage, plus some Verbascum phoeniceum in mixed colours that came free with a magazine but are none the worse for that.  There are tentative signs of life from the pot of perennial flax, and to my delight the sea daffodil and Hesperaloe are both germinating.  One Clivia seed is looking good on the kitchen window sill, but the second is struggling and the third succumbed to mould while still in the airing cupboard.  And that's about it, so far.

Mature plants of snowy woodrush sell for about five pounds, and I would like quite a lot to go round the edge of the pond, so in fact if that one pot of seedlings makes it to the stage of being planted out in the garden they will pretty much have paid for this year's seed orders, but I hope some more pots will germinate.  Maybe the cold weather held them back.