Seed Sowing and New gardening.ie Website

My gardening.ie website was unceremoniously taken offline last week.  It’s only just disappeared but I am already looking at it through rose tinted glasses.   The website had eight years of articles and information in it.  There was also business section for anyone to advertise free of charge.  I also had a classified section, a forum for anyone wanting answers to gardening problems, advertising, links pages, hundreds if not thousands of images.  All gone in a flash.  

The reality is that the site became a dinosaur full of spam which made the hosting company very upset as it clogged up their servers.  I had neglected the site for a good few years and in a way it was inevitable.  I can now do what I do best (and most frequently in gardens) and that is to start again from scratch. 

I've set up a Felco site selling what I think are the best secateurs on the market.

I've acquired the felco.info web domain too and linking that in.

Sowing Seeds

Last week I mentioned that I had ordered the polytunnel.  Unfortunately it still hasn’t arrived, which is both good and not so good news. The good news is that the rain has wet the ground enough for me to get a good straight edge on the ditch I need to dig for the polythene that goes over the tunnel.  The not so good news is that I need to get the seeds planted in time for the growing season and time is ticking away.

I needed to take positive action so I went through all of this year’s newly acquired seed packet instructions to see what I could plant in cell containers in the house and leave the “sow out of doors” types like peas, beetroot, spring onions spinach and lettuce until the tunnel arrives. I have finished sieving the soil outside (which took me 5 days) and incorporating loads of well rotted manure, so I can plant the peas outside when I get some sticks to support them.  

It’s all in the mix

The plastic 27 cell containers I have are specially made for growing on a windowsill. They are just 5 inches wide, which makes them just perfect for indoors.  The compost is proving to be a bit of a letdown this year.  I generally buy the same product on an annual basis but this year they have changed the mix.  I think the peat ratio has dropped dramatically as the big companies have finally both listened to public protests and realised that peat is a finite resource and won’t last long at the current rate of use.  Consequently the compost is now predominantly wood shavings and what looks like coco fibre with a bit of horse hair thrown in.  I’ll give it a go and see if it compares, if not I might have to make my own or buy the John Innes type soil based compost.  I have asked around and most people are commenting on the same issue with different suppliers.

I have also made labels from old yogurt pots onto which I am writing the seed types in indelible ink.  So far I have planted broccoli, curly Kale, squash, sweet peas, runner and broad beans, nasturtiums, coriander, parsley, tomato, sweetcorn, basil, courgette, sunflowers and chillis. I have now run out of windowsill space.

The new compost is coarse and looks as though it will dry out quickly, especially when the sun shines through the windows so I have concocted plastic covers made from small sticks and clingfilm for the time being until the tunnel is put up, then I can use some of the off cut of the plastic after it has been cut to size around the frame.  

I am also trying out some small moulded cardboard pots for the beans. I have found in the past that transferring them from pots into the ground can distress them a bit which holds back the growth.  These pots can be planted straight into the ground.  They do get very soft and weak when wet so I have packed them tightly together in small trays to keep them in shape.  They look and feel a bit like the egg box cardboard but a bit coarser.  I tried those a few years ago and they all went mouldy on me and killed off the seedlings. It’ll be interesting to see if theses pots contain a bit of fungicide to stop that happening. 

*Disclaimer: Unlike a lot of products on the market, there are no traces of horse in potting compost.