Seeds and Weeds

After spending some time thinking over what I want to grow, and drawing out a rough plan of where to put it all, my mum and I went off to Irish Seedsavers, situated just outside Scariff. In the summer they have a cafe and a shop to sell their seeds, and although the cafe was closed during the winter months, I could peruse the seeds they had on offer at my leisure. They were very helpful and gaveme advice about which seeds to get and when to plant them.

Some of the seeds I bought

I’ll just make a list here of all the seeds I bought and the variety name:

Courgette: ‘Gene bank marrow’

Cucumber: ‘Wautoma’

Spinach: ‘Giant Noble’

Lettuce: ‘Garnet Oak Leaf’ and ‘Verde A Foglia Riccia’

Peas: ‘Irish Green’ and ‘Nordland Snow’, and a Sweet Pea for the bees

We have a bee hive. They looked pretty
happy on a particuarly sunny winters day
last thursday. Hope to make them
happier with lots of flowers.

Tomato: ‘Broad Ripple Currant’ and ‘Polen’ (I only like cherry tomatoes)

Basil: ‘Sacred’- a much hardier version with smaller leaves

Beetroot: ‘Formanova’

I also discovered some seeds hiding away in a container I hadn’t looked into yet. Of the seeds I thought could be used (some were out of date or eaten by fungi/insects/something) includes courgette, little gem lettuce, early purple sprouting broccoli, and a seed multipack containing beetroot, perpetual spinach, tomatoes, more little gem lettuce, carrots, and leeks. I also saved some bean seeds when I took the dead bean plants out. So lots to work with!

One thing I would like to add here is about the wonderful advantage of buying seeds from Seedsavers; all their plants are open pollinated. This means that they will all produce viable seed that I can harvest and save to use next year. 

This is in contrast to F1 hybrid seeds, in which two somewhat genetically different parents (e.g. two different varieties of maize) are hand pollinated (crossed) to create hybrid seed. This is desirable in many crops as F1 generations are often stronger, bigger, or produce more seed, or are sterile in the case of cucumbers or grapes or many other types of fruits with no seeds in them, which effectively ends their reproductive line. In the F1s that do produce seed, it may produce an F2 generation that is sterile or has less seed, or more susceptible to disease, just generally worse than either the F1 or the original parents. This crop science technique has been very useful across the world in producing large amounts of food as the population grows bigger, but it also means that using F1 hybrid seed I would have to spend money on new seed every year. But with open pollinated seed, genes are mixed around as the pollen from many types of parents or crossed back and forth, creating a genotype (its genetic makeup) and phenotype (what it looks like) that is stable generation after generation.

Creepy roots/horseradish.
Could be from another planet.

Back to the garden. I mainly worked on various beds around the outside of the polytunnel, and started with the rock raised bed. This was easy enough; I just needed to put fallen rocks back in the little wall that creates the bed. I then dug out the weeds that were in there and cut out shrubby shoots that I think have grown up from the fruit tree next to the bed. My original plan for this bed was a herb garden, but as it was such nice soil and in a large clear area I may put the peas in there instead.

The next raised bed I worked on was the tall wooden one right next to rock bed. It looked like much easier work than the rock bed as it is half the size and mostly cleared earth, but in the end it took an hour to dig up as there was all this creepy-alien- triffidy roots growing in them. Apparently it is horseradish (bleugh). But now I have a wonderful cleared bed for something else. Maybe carrots? Courgettes?

The rest of the work involved trimming. As I don’t have secateurs, I had to use a mini saw, but I cut back the blackcurrant bushes, which were happily spreading themselves in many directions (I didn’t know they could do this!). I also tidied up the lavender and rosemary, which was very pleasant.

Almost all the roots I pulled out of
the wooden bed behind

Lastly, I have started moving some tyres around. I am removing tyres that are directly behind the polytunnel and are in the way a bit. As I was moving the soil that was in them, I found some potatoes, which went into my dinner that evening. I also moved two tyres of heather out of the way (actually turned into 4 clumps).

Next on my to-do list is fun exciting things like planting my first seeds, and rather boringly: moving more manure. A LOT more. And probably gathering up more pots.

In other news, a few tulips are peaking through, and the daffodils are getting ready to bloom. Spring is round the corner!

Two beds I cleared and are ready for
plants

Adventure continues..

Hannah