Generally, around mid March my personal seed sowing diary swings into action, as I commence growing my summer garden . However the Crafty Gardeners are already on the seed sowing case, and we are talking (and sowing) vegetables.

The delivery of an allotment planner to the Crafty Gardeners at their three allotment plots last week, started this process rolling .

We immediately started checking through seed packets. Leek,pea and onion seeds were found, and we set off filling the brand new file in. It really was quite exciting . We all agreed that it will be really useful as it will help us to know when and what we have sown. Most importantly all this information will be in one place, and we will be able to take it out when we are giving talks to show what food we grow and how we look after it.

We then headed of to the polytunnel to get sowing .

We didn’t have any fresh compost to sow our seeds, but we did come across some fresh mole hill soil on the allotment which we used instead. We could have sieved it, but we decided it was fine enough to use. It will be interesting to see how the seeds germinate in mole hill soil, I do think they will be perfectly okay though.

When I am not volunteering with the Crafty Gardeners , my working life finds me working as a gardener and being part of the nursery team at Wildegoose . It is fair to say plant propagation is very much a part of my professional working life, the following link Natural stratification explains how seeds are sown at the nursery.

Seeds were sown, and topped off with horticultural grit, we watered them, and covered them with net to deter potential visiting rodents. It truly was a great and productive day spent on the allotments. Seed sowing in Februaty was a great way to start the Crafty Gardeners allotment year.