Spring Planting has Begun

Hopefully slightly more relevant than my last post about The Crooked Car Dealer.

At long last. The first seeds of the season have been sown.

It's been a very sullen, cold and slow Spring so far. I know that some of my neighbours have taken their chances and sown their first Summer seed a couple of weeks ago already. I refrained, but we all agree on one thing: we greatly fear a repeat of last year's oddly fucked-up season. Last year Spring sprang pretty early, so we all leapt in and planted. Then it all collapsed. Through an unusually cold and damp October and November all the baby plants went dormant, and never really caught up with the growth we'd normally expect through Summer. Yields were way down, and some of the sunlight-hungry crops - Chiles particularly - barely produced any fruit at all until well into early Winter!

So this year, despite some promising weather a couple of weeks ago, I held back with my planting. But today was so Spring perfect a day - sunny, warm, and not a breath of wind - that you'ld have to be inhuman to resist.

So the first seeds are sown. First are the most essential Chiles, Tomatoes and Eggplants, plus a tray of Lettuce for seed. Let's see how the weird weather treats us. I certainly have enough to be getting on with to prepare the beds in the meantime, and I'll follow up with more seed-sowing in a week or so.

First of the Season's Sowing

First sowing for the coming Summer. We've been experiencing a very early warm spell, so, despite, a day or two of cold and (hopefully) wet forecast, I've taken a chance on an extra-early sowing of Chillis and Eggplants. Since I'll be in Cape Town for two weeks starting next week, I'll miss my usual Chilli/Eggplant/Tomato sowing window (3rd week in Aug.) With a bit of luck the weather will stay warm enough to get this batch going.

In any case I'll sow again in about 3 weeks' time when I return. For this sowing I've taken no risks, and only sown varieties that I have plenty of seed stock. Others - Rocoto Amarillo, Tobascos, Corno di Toro, Aji Dulce and a few more - where I only have a very few seeds have been held back for later planting in warmer weather.

Every year I swear that I will build a greenhouse, but it hasn't happened yet.

Tomato sowing next...

Early Planning for Summer

Time for me to get busy preparing for the coming Summer. Yes, I do know that it's still the middle of Winter.

I have some contract (software) architecture & design work over the next few months which will see me spending quite a bit of time in Cape Town, starting in mid-August, so if I don't get off my duff and start preparing veggie beds now, I'm going to be hopelessly behind schedule by the time October comes around. The only real problem I face is a huge shortage of compost! There simply hasn't been the water for making compost from the stable-sweepings I usually use.

As it is I'm going to run a week or so late with seed-sowing, but it shouldn't do any real harm. As ever we'll be optimistic over rain this coming Summer, but I really must try and concentrate my efforts on fewer varieties of Chillis and Tomatoes, and on increasing the sheer volumes. Still, it's so great to be getting my hands back into the ground! I can't believe how much I've been missing the dirt under my nails.

Need I say that the veggie garden has been badly neglected, so it is a jungle of weeds. I wish the rotovator was working, then I'd make short work of clearing the beds. Perhaps we'll be able to spare enough money for a new rotovator motor if things go well. The old one bent something vital in the engine, and, given that the motor is a foreign make with no local agents, the cost of repair is up there in the same region as an entirely new motor. When we visited the Barley Breeding Institute, I noticed that they use the same make of rotovator as I have (BCS), and asked them where they source parts. The chap there laughed and said, "Oh no! We replace the motors as soon as we get the machine. The motors they come with are useless. Fine machines otherwise, though!" I can't help but agree.

We're also planning on acquiring a couple of Piggies. Brother-in-law has a mild-tempered boar who has been quite (cough) busy... and they receive a piglet from each litter he's responsible for. They've offered to let us have some, and I am very keen. I just don't know that keeping only two sows justifies the keeping of a boar of our own...

Busy times!

Yellow Crookneck Planting

Planted out a couple of metres of bed (S2 bed) of Yellow Crookneck Squash. Very old seed (DA03) so I've sowed very thickly -- stations about 20xcm apart each way, 2 seeds per station. I'll thin if necessary, but it probably won't be.

The aim is simply to get a few -- 4 or 6 if I'm lucky -- plants from which to keep seed, so I'll be hand-pollinating. I'll also have to tray various measures to keep the dread Pumkpin Flies away -- caging at least, maybe spatter an aromatic (Peppermint?) oil on the leaves as a distractant, maybe try CanadaMike's suggestion of using diatomaceous earth.

Yellow Crookneck Planting

Planted out a couple of metres of bed (S2 bed) of Yellow Crookneck Squash. Very old seed (DA03) so I've sowed very thickly -- stations about 20xcm apart each way, 2 seeds per station. I'll thin if necessary, but it probably won't be.

The aim is simply to get a few -- 4 or 6 if I'm lucky -- plants from which to keep seed, so I'll be hand-pollinating. I'll also have to tray various measures to keep the dread Pumkpin Flies away -- caging at least, maybe spatter an aromatic (Peppermint?) oil on the leaves as a distractant, maybe try CanadaMike's suggestion of using diatomaceous earth.

Seeds and Stress

The results of the weekend's planting. Doesn't look like much, does it?

Spring sowing time is always a bit stressful for me. For most vegetable varieties I save all my own seed -- with some notable exceptions -- Radishes, locally-common Turnips, Cauliflowers and Broccoli. I really love saving seed, seeing plants go through their whole lifecycle, from babyhood when they're at their most tender and succulent, through girding their strength, storing up their energies to explode into flower. Ah, the Joy of Sex! Then, into their dowdy, shabby days as they develop their seed, finally to release their offspring to start the next cycle.

But for me, the apprentice gardener, its a stress mission. Did I let the seed develop fully enough last season? Or was I too paranoid of the bugs waiting to pounce on the booty? Did some weevils get into the seed? (hello Peas and Beans!) Have I hung onto the seed too long? Has some invisible bacteria taken a toll?  Did I process the seed properly after harvesting?

There are lots of reasons for saving your own seed, and I mostly try and make it a policy to only ever buy, beg, borrow or steal a new variety once.  After that I try my best to save my own seed, despite my notoriously poor labelling habits and generally dismal level of organisation!

Generally I sow a mix of last-year's seed, plus a bit from the year before if that's proven itself as "good" seed. That's assuming I actually have any seed from last year. Some varieties, notably the Beets and Chards, make seed that is so long-lived that I keep their seed for up to five years at a stretch. Mind you, I'm constantly sowing and growing them, so I notice very quickly if a batch of seed starts to show poor germination, or if plants are not-so-vigorous.  But, as I'm filling seed-trays, popping the seeds into them and covering them carefully, there seems to always be the question in my mind, "Will they come up OK?"

Usually they do, and all my worry is for nothing.  Occasionally there are "disasters", and once in a while the disaster doesn't make itself apparent until the plant starts fruiting or flowering, and I learn that I've been careless with plant-isolation distances. Then we celebrate the Wonders of Weird Chillis.

There's still a lot of direct-sown stuff to take care of, lots of beds to dig (if the damn knee will just cooperate!) But these as-yet-barren trays represent the Precious Darlings -- the Chillis, Tomatoes, Tomatilloes, Tamarillos, Squashes and Eggplants.  Nothing I can do to help them now, beyond watering.