COLUMNIST: Kelly Ireland
As a gardener, it is fast approaching the most exciting time of the year… the start of a new growing season.
I already have a number of seed packets squirrelled away in containers dotted throughout the house (pro tip for you there - if you keep various tubs in various locations then no one really knows just how bad your seed addiction really is). This is not stopping me looking at the catalogues that are winging their way to me though because there is always something else to grow.
Seed sowing in February is a great way to shake off the winter blues. It may be too cold to do any actual outdoor gardening yet, but there is absolutely nothing to stop you sowing a few lettuce seeds on a sunny windowsill to keep you going. I am always surprised how cheering it is to have some fresh home grown greens on even the smallest scale - think of it like an edible house plant.
Seeds really are magic. Take the humble sunflower seed, which I think of as the gateway drug to seed starting. Less than a centimetre in size and yet within that stripey little shell is the potential of a six foot plus plant. How can this be? Don’t ruin it with science please. Just let me be amazed.
One of my favourite germination stories is that of the Australian wattle plant (Acacia pycnantha). For germination, it relies on ants who take the tasty stalks underground into their nest to feed their young and discard (what to them is) the useless seed. The seed has been taken into ideal germination territory with built in aeration and moisture. There are many strange and wonderful ways that seeds find ways to germinate.
You can get quite bogged down with all the techniques and tricks of seed starting. For example, I know many people soak or sandpaper their sweet peas before sowing as a way of kick-starting the germination process. I have never bothered with either of these - I just bung them in a root trainer and hope for the best.
Then there is the business of stratification. For those that don’t know, this is simply mimicking natural conditions to break the dormancy of a seed.
I have thoughts about this.
I have faffed about taking seeds in and out of the fridge to jump start them and had very limited success, although this is probably more down to me than anything else. I’m sure it does work if you do it properly, but I am also someone who wonders whether just chucking them outside in autumn would serve the same purpose. They’ll be more susceptible to getting eaten (I’m looking at you, the thriving vole population in my garden) but surely it should work just as well as trying to artificially start them?
As a kind of mid-way between the two aforementioned thought processes, this year I have taken quite the leap of faith and have already done some winter sowing in modules. This is a new idea to me: to sow seeds at the start of the winter and let them slowly, slowly germinate as the weather allows.
Seeds are precious, so I have only taken the risk with the ones I have in abundance and that are most likely to survive the arctic conditions we can get here in Scotland. I’ve multi-sown calendula, Nigella, foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), mullein (Verbascum thapsus), and snapdragons (Antirrhinum). Already calendula, foxglove, and snapdragons have germinated. The calendula and snapdragons are from saved seed, and the foxglove is from an old packet I found in a coat pocket (this is NOT the recommended way to store seeds). I am waiting to see if the Nigella and mullein catch up.
I am being uncharacteristically nonchalant about these seeds. They are out on a potting bench in the elements, up high from any potential vole damage, and I have the attitude of what will be, will be. It is an experiment, and I am treating it as such. I keep thinking of Lord Farquaad from Shrek, “Some of you are going to die, and it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.”
This is absolutely not my attitude to the seeds that will be sown indoors early in February. These peppers, aubergines, and chillies that take an eternity to grow this far north are started at the end of January/beginning of February. For the next eight to twelve weeks, I will thrill my family with daily updates on germination. Make no mistake, it is absolutely a competition and the first to germinate will have a place in my own personal seedling hall of fame. Its photo will be sent round various family group chats (both immediate and extended). There will be social media opportunities. That first seedling of 2025 will be adored… for at least 48 hours.
Fast forward three weeks and rather than celebrating the birthday of each germination, a mild panic will have set in about where I am going to house all these now potted up and rapidly growing seedlings. Instead of crowing about how amazing I am at getting seeds to germinate, I will be playing pot tetris as I try to make sure everyone is getting the sunlight they need.
Then there are the failures. The ones that don’t germinate, or lose the fight against dampening off, or the cat lies on them, or a person puts a bag on top of them (this has happened more than once, sad to say. How you cannot see a tray full of baby plants is perplexing to me but I’m not a teenager, and my eyeballs seem to work).
The failures will be talked about as much as the successes. I will wonder aloud where the green algae came from, and whether I should have used more cinnamon on the bare soil, and no one will reply because no one else is pinning their future garden happiness on what is developing in those seed trays and pots. I may get the odd sympathetic noise from my partner, or a brutal, “But I thought you were good at this?” from a well meaning child, but that will be about it.
I think at this point I should confess that I am yet to grow a truly satisfactory harvest of peppers or aubergines. I think it is partly down to the local climate - we can and do have snowfall in May. More than that, though, is the embarrassing truth that comes at the end of May that I have lost my enthusiasm to coddle the plants - and it seems that peppers need to be coddled right through until August to have any real success. So, I will be content with my sad little green peppers.
The same cannot be said of cucumbers, which I always sow too early and who become little monsters in the house and go on to provide a prolific number of fruits, so much so that I end up missing some and as a result find these tough-skinned, bitter monster cucumbers that even the chickens refuse to try. Every year I make a note that says only sow one of each variety, and every year I ignore it because this might be the year that cucumbers fail me.
This coming year is the year of go big or go home. Last year we had not long moved into the house and the outside was not so much of a priority, but this year is the year of the garden. I have dreams of drifts of sunflowers and Rudbeckia, a walkway lined with hollyhocks and a carpet of chamomile. I also want to try to grow as much as possible from seed and cuttings as it’s too big a space to go crazy at the garden centre. It’s a big task, but I am willing to give it my best shot.
I’ll be cleaning pots and trays throughout the coming weeks, finding the best place to order seed compost, and writing out a sowing schedule. This WILL be the year I stick to it!
2025 really is the year of the seed, and I can’t wait.
Kelly Ireland is a keen gardener living with her partner on an off-grid smallholding in the North East of Scotland. After ten years, the house is finished and it is now time to concentrate on the garden. Kelly completed her Permaculture Design Certificate in 2022 and is using this to develop the new gardens around their home.
Keep up with her garden on Instagram at @growingseasons_.