#seedlibrary

The heady days of summer are long behind us at this stage, but the garden still finds ways to put on a show. As I walk to work, I see the last act of nasturtiums, dahlias, chamomile, anemones, cosmos and chrysanthemums giving a vibrant display of reds and yellows to compliment the falling leaves of autumn. Although the days are getting shorter and wetter, there is nothing that will deter a hardy gardener and there are still plenty of jobs to do in the garden. Here I have outlined four of them.

Collect seeds from hardy perennials, such as Astrantia, achillea and red valerian.

To collect seeds from Astrantia you will need: scissors and brown paper bags. Once the flowers have turned brown put the paper bag over the flower head to ensure no seeds are lost and snip the stem. Give it a good shake and all the seeds should fall to the bottom of the bag ready to be planted. Astrantia’s can be sown now as they need the cold of winter to germinate. Using seed trays, fill them with soil or potting compost and sprinkle the seeds on top and cover with vermiculite or horticultural grit and press down gently. The trays can then be overwintered and planted in the garden next spring. Alternatively, if you want to store these until next spring and plant them then, put them in the fridge a month before you intend to use them, and this should mimic the cold of winter.

Collect leaves for leaf mould or compost.

Rake up fallen leaves from lawns, borders, driveways and paths, and store in a leaf mould bin to rot down into leaf mould or just chuck onto your compost heap. Adding leaves back into your soil in whatever shape or form you choose is hugely advantageous because they contain minerals like magnesium and phosphorus that replace those lost during the growing season. They are also free!

Sow microgreens for nutrient-rich pickings in just a few weeks.

Microgreens can be grown all year round, in any container you can get your hands on, on any available windowsill. Fill your container with soil or potting compost and make a small drill in the middle about 1cm deep. Sprinkle the seeds as evenly as you can in the drill and cover with soil. Lightly mist using a spray bottle as opposed to a watering can, the seeds are quite small, so you don’t want them to be washed away. Ensure the seeds don’t dry out and you should be able to harvest your microgreen in under two weeks’ time. Keep sowing regularly and you will be able to eat fresh greens all winter long. For more information on microgreen why not check out ‘Sprouts, Shoots and Microgreens: Tiny Plants to Grow and Eat in Your Home Kitchen’ by Lina Wallentinson, available to borrow from your local library.

Plant garlic cloves.

September is the perfect time for harvesting seeds and in this blog, I’ll show you four different seeds I’ve harvested since the start of the month. This year I’ve managed to produce more seed than flowers it seems, and all my cuttings have done really well too. My sweet peas are still flowering after almost three months, and they are a proud success story. I would highly recommend growing this plant to even the most nervous of novice gardeners as they are so easy to grow and produce such a wonderful visual and olfactory display for months at a time. As if that wasn’t enough, they produce prominent seed pods that don’t explode when you touch them (like poppies or the touch-me-not plant!) and are amazingly easy to harvest.

Sweet pea seeds

Sweet peas bloom all summer long and well into autumn. This means they are also producing seeds. When the flower petals wither and die the seed pod is left, the seed pod in this case is banana-shaped and covered in white hairs. Once the seed pod turns brown, is it ready to be harvested. Simply remove them from the plant and squeeze the seeds out of the casing. You can either store them somewhere cool, dry, and dark for next year or you can drop them down to Hollyhill Library to share with the community.

Poppy seeds

Poppy seeds are ready to harvest during late summer and early autumn. These are slightly trickier to harvest than sweet peas as the seed pods can sometimes explode! This is their method of ensuring that as many of the seeds germinate as possible, but it does make it more difficult for us. Once the leaves have fallen away from the seed pod it will slowly turn from a pale green orb to a brown. You can tell it is ready to be harvested if the seed pod rattles when you shake it. After this I usually cut the stalks and carefully place them upside down in an envelope to catch the seeds, but you can also put them on a tray to dry out or bag each seed head individually when they are still on the plant to ensure the seeds have reached maturity. Let the seeds dry for a couple of weeks before storing them in a cool, dry, and dark place.

Love-in-a-mist seeds

These seeds too are ready to harvest late summer/early autumn. They are similar to the poppy in that the seed pod is spherical in shape and turns from a green to a brown. This makes the harvesting process similar too. They are less likely to explode but the outer casing is as thin as paper and will tear easily so do be careful. Once the seed head has turned brown, I cut the stalks and place them upside down in an envelope so they can dry out fully. You do not need to keep the seed head; we just want the lovely little black seeds inside. Store them somewhere cool, dry, and dark.

Martock beans

With beans and peas, you must leave some pods on the plant so that they can dry out and turn to seeds. The dried pods are usually ready to pick around August/September time. Once you have picked them remove the beans from the pod and store them in a cool, dry, and dark place. They really are one of the easiest plants to save seeds from!

In July the garden is absolutely teeming with life. My housemates and I built a birdbox together and created a small shelf where we can leave food and watch the birds from the kitchen window. So far, we have seen ravens, blackbirds, thrushes, and a most inquisitive robin. My peas and beans are producing fruit like no tomorrow, and we had an interesting visit from a little insect visitor. One of my coworkers is single handedly supplying me with courgettes and I have made many soups and cakes and courgette fritters with these plentiful little vegetables.

Jobs for July:

1) July is the best time to pick lavender. Choose to harvest in the middle of the day to ensure that all the morning dew has evaporated. Cut the lavender stems at the base, just where the branch leaves become stems and leave to dry in a cool dark space (although others leave it out to dry in the open to enjoy the smell). A cloth or paper bag works best as the flowers will shed through the drying process. It takes 3 – 4 weeks for the lavender to dry completely and retains it fragrance for over a year afterwards.

2) Watch out for pests such as the lily beetle. I was out admiring the garden the other day and came across some odd little gooey green blobs on the underside of my lily leaves. I removed them immediately because although I did not know what they were, it was almost bound to be a pest! Several days later and I spy a bright red beetle sunning itself amongst the lilies and after a quick internet search I came to the conclusion that it was Lilioceris Lilii a beetle that can decimate members of the Lilium and Fritillaria families. It had flown away before I could get rid of it, but I haven’t seen it since. If you have seen this bright little beetle in your garden, spraying the affected plant with sunflower oil ought to do the trick.

3) Water peas and beans regularly. They produce multitudes of fruit over the growing period and because of this they are thirsty little plants. Keep them moist and feed them if you are so inclined, I feed mine whenever I remember I have a bottle of liquid tomato feed under the sink!

The garden flourishes in June. With bold displays of colour from fox gloves and lupins, to freshly grown produce like garlic and courgette and even the little seedlings planted earlier in the year are finding a place to call home. In my garden the sweet peas I planted back in February are flowering beautifully and releasing the most gorgeous fragrance into the garden. The flowers are pale pink and white and I borrowed the seeds from our very own seed library here in Hollyhill. I have attached a photo of these wonderful flowers and a photo of the Martock beans I also planted back in February, as they have just begun to flower in the loveliest shade of lilac. It’s wonderful when your fruits or vegetables can be grown in amongst your flowers as they can make your display a little more eye catching and encourage you to get in amongst the flowers when you are harvesting, unlocking a new way of interacting with your garden.

For those of us real garden enthusiasts, the highlight of the gardening year is Chelsea Flower Show. I watch this every year and the gardens just keep getting better and better. Recently they have introduced the small garden category and the houseplant category meaning even more people can watch and come away with meaningful planting techniques for their space – no matter how small. Several of the gardens this year really encouraged the mixing of vegetables and flowers in your garden as opposed to the more traditional option of having your vegetable garden separate from your flowers and I love it. Plants like fennel, lavender, parsley, and lemon balm add such colour and fragrance to the garden that it seems a shame to relegate them to the vegetable patch. My garden this year is sort of a mix by accident as I’ve sorted everything by when it will flower as opposed to flowers in one section and veg in the other. I have my Martock beans next to my sweet peas and lilies, my marigolds in amongst my garlic and onions, and my strawberries are close to my fuchsia bushes.

Here are all the flowers and fruits/vegetables that you can plant in June that we have in stock in Hollyhill:

I am going to grow radishes again this year as these worked really well last year and I’m also going to try coriander because I use a lot of coriander in my cooking. Radishes are great as they can be grown from March all the way through until August. They love warm soil with lots of moisture so I ‘ve put mine in the same container as my peas which is by a south facing wall. They grow very quickly too and are ready to eat 3 to 6 weeks after you plant them and in fact are better the sooner you eat them as they can become woody if left in the ground too long.

Come May the garden is bursting with life, my irises are in full bloom, my strawberries have just started to flower, my peas, sweet peas and Martock beans (readers of this blog may remember I was given these beans at a seed saving talk held in Hollyhill Library during Heritage Week last year) are all well on their way and one of my jobs for the weekend is to build them a trellis. The weather is fine, the days are long and at this time of year there is nothing I love more than pottering around my garden watching everything bask in the sunshine.

Here are all the seeds you can plant in May (and it just so happens we have them all in stock in Hollyhill Library!)

Enough that you could plant something new every day of May and still have seeds left over. I have planted my calendula seeds in amongst my garlic and onion bed as a companion plant. Companion planting is sowing two specific seeds next to each other because they each have properties that are mutually beneficial to each other. Calendula is a great one as it is not only extremely attractive to pollinators, but it also deters aphids and whitefly. Common crops that will benefit from calendula being planted near them include: tomatoes, beans, courgettes, and all brassicas and alliums.

To sow calendula seeds you can start them off indoors in a sunny window and plant them out once they are about 5cm tall or you can plant them straight outside if the risk of frost has passed. Use a good compost or well raked soil and cover the seeds with a thin layer, water well and you should be able to see your seeds growing in 1 – 2 weeks’ time. Calendula is an annual so it will only last the year, but they are also great self seeders.

A more in-depth exploration of companion planting can be found in Jill Billington’s Planting Companions, available to borrow from Hollyhill Library. The author talks about natural compatibility and the importance of understanding your garden climate, for example, how shaded it is, the acidity of the soil, when choosing what to plant in your garden. She focuses mainly on flowers and goes into a lot of detail about using height and space to your advantage but if veg is more your cup of tea then Jessica Walliser’s Plant Partners: science-based companion planting strategies for the vegetable garden is the one for you. This book really covers all the bases with chapters on weed management, support structures, pest management and pollination showing you how to really maximise the space you have and the plants you can grow. Working with your garden and understanding how the plants interact with each other would probably be described as holistic gardening today but the concept of listening to nature and learning from the environment around you has been around for hundreds of years.