Spring is definitely here!
Yesterday, the sun actually felt warm. This means the soil in your pots and garden will be getting some energy from the sun to get warm. It is important for the soil to be warm before you plant your seeds as seeds are a little like us in that they need warmth and care to grow well.
If you want to help the soil gather the sun’s energy more quickly you can do a couple of things. Firstly if you have some black polythene you can lay this on the soil and it will gather more of the sun’s energy and put it into the soil. Secondly if you have some clear polythene or a clear squash bottle you can make a little tent or cloche. This acts like a mini-greenhouse and captures the heat of the sun and prevents the soil losing heat at night.
A smart way to start is with a few seeds on the windowsill so that they are ready to plant out later in the month. A very good and easy seed to grow like this is Broad Beans. We roll up little tubes of newspaper and fill them with warm compost and put one bean in each tube. As the bean grows the newspaper disintegrates and we can plant the whole thing into the ground without disturbing the roots.
Another good thing to get growing now is radish. In the picture above you can see some of our finest from last year! And don’t forget if you want to become friendly with radish you might want to start by reading the story of Rudi Radish in Seed City! The pack comes with organic seeds, growing instructions and kit.
