Earlier in the year, the lovely folk at Suttons sent me a heap of veg seeds to trial.
These included a pack of spring collection Seed Tapes which look like thin strips of loo roll, with seeds impregnated in the ‘tissuey’ fabric at regular intervals. (There is a winter collection too)
You get 10 veg strips per pack which have to be gently torn apart to get to the veg seed strip you wish to plant.
For goodness sake, do not….I repeat…DO NOT ‘sow’ your seed strips on a windy day. Unless you want your garden to look like a scene from an Andrex disaster movie, might I suggest sowing on a ‘waftless’ day. Remember, I do these experiments so you don’t have to.
These are our ‘Square Foot Gardening’ beds which had been topped up with fresh compost. It’s quite simple, make a shallow drill (don’t breathe out), lay the thin tissue strip in to the hole (do not exhale), quickly, before a gnat wafts by, cover the strips, label, water, stand back and BREATHE!!
The photo above was taken earlier in the year and you can see my beetroot, carrots & lettuce lines had sprouted. I didn’t sow everything in the pack.
These photos were taken this morning.
The lettuce has been eaten, the carrots & some beetroot given away. I have a feeling Master TG pinched all the spring onions. These strips were an excellent idea, no thinning, no judging sowing distances, just cover, water, smile at occasionally & wait.
Easy veg growing!
This is the same bed, which later in the year I added my own sweetcorn & tomato seedlings to. After last years sweetcorn disaster where I forgot to shake the pollen, I made sure that I gave them a damn good shaking & finger wagging…result…
…big, fat, juicy cobs.
Meanwhile, in the other bed, my main tomato crop is firming up nicely but not reddening up quick enough for my liking…Grrr.
I am a sucker for a weak seedling, if a seed has taken the trouble to grow but there are trillions of them then I’m afraid I have to give them a chance. So these black troughs running alongside the greenhouse are the ‘thinnings’ that survived.
The strawberries were a great success this year. These are just grown in troughs alongside the raised beds.
So there you have it.
Don’t forget, apart from the troughs, ALL of my veg is growing in 2 SMALL raised beds that measure just under 1m x 1.5m. You really can do soooooo much in a tiny space.
This photo was also taken this morning after a downpour which we needed, so thank you Mother Nature.
Have a fab weekend everyone!
3 comments:
Last photo is heavenly......
Ha, in my mind sowing seed strips on a windy day is like watching those weather forecasters that stand out there in a hurricane and try to give a somewhat professional-sounding report. I need to get some of those seed tapes! I am a terrible thinner, as it just seems so ruthless to pull out all those little green sprouts. Your sweetcorn is looking good. I learned the same lesson this year with the tomatoes in the new greenhouse - apparently, due to lack of greenhouse bees, steps must be taken. (I did have some wasps apply to move into the greenhouse, but they just didn't fit the bill.) I'm finally now getting a tomato crop. The kitchen garden is looking impressive. It's amazing what one can grow in just a small space!
I saw those seed tapes on Suttons website, but didn’t buy them as I was moving this year and didn’t want to have too many veg to take care of. Maybe next year, my vegetable garden is always going to be just a small thing more for fun. I will definitely have strawberries again next year. I am looking for the perfect strawberries to grow, the sweetest, most flavoursome ones, not necessarily the largest, I would like one early and one late cropper - have you got any names to add to my try-and-taste list?
Lovely last photo – and I am sitting here waiting for the rain we are promised today, hope it’s coming as I didn’t water last night!
Have a great Sunday :-)
Post a comment