Revolution in the seed box and space on the bookshelves.

Happy New Year and a floriferous 2014 to you all.

The lashing rains and winds have kept me indoors, going slightly stir-crazy, with only the odd nip into the greenhouse to pluck out mouldy seedlings or a quick snip around the flower borders to clear the brown limp leafy matter providing hidy holes for slugs.

But my indoor time has not been without its harvests. As I write my hallway is stacked with Victorian English authors, waiting to go to the charity shop.  This is due to the Yuletide arrival of my shiny new Kindle and the free availability of venerable books, no longer in copyright.  It is also due to the need for shelf space to house the reading library gifted to my kids this Christmas if there is to be any chance of  books being put back on shelves once they've been looked at.

Thus enthused by the desire for clear outs and fresh starts, I've cast my pruning eye upon the contents of my wardrobe, my library of ancient university folders and anything else that has lurked in a cupboard, untouched, for years gone by.

Nor has my seed box been exempt. I've made my annual lists of what I've got and ever-growing wish lists of what I'd like to grow in the forthcoming year.  I've even been online and let my enthusiasm run away with me in the face of tempting seed catalogues.  And I've also evicted things I know I won't plant this year - such as brussel sprouts and  cabbages - brassicas involve too much of my most hated gardening job i.e. netting things. Without such protection it isn't worth bothering with them at the pigeon feasting ground which is the allotment.  Also, brassicas are cheap to buy, take up lots of space and need time to mature into a worthwhile crop.  So…. into the compost bin they went.

Further victims were seeds which I partly sowed last year and which had patchy or non-existent germination rates (probably due to age, or to the cold start to 2013).  Also, where I have lots of seeds for a particular variety, I've put a batch aside to donate to the school gardens.

Everything has been filed, by sowing month, and is looking ready for action. My no-longer compost stained fingers are already itching for activity, twitching towards my packets and waiting longingly for longer days. I am going to be very strict with myself this year and resist the urge to sow until March as last year's incredibly late spring really put paid to any miserable attempts to get ahead. Until light levels increase with the turn of the seasons, we are all fighting against the conditions anyway. I refuse to have a greenhouse full of weedy scraggly things which refuse to prosper until spring arrives: better instead to wait until things can be sowed, raring to go.

Alarm bells for seed savers

My clutter-busting activities also unearthed a letter from Garden Organic, outlining a new EU plant material directive.  As an avid seed saver myself and a member of the Heritage Seed Library (HSL), this legislation seems rather threatening. Along with other seed libraries and small seed producing companies, HSL's work is at risk from a proposed new law to enforce the licensing of all seed production regardless of the quantities sold (or freely exchanged) and the their commercial viability.  It would force seed libraries, small breeders, specialist nurseries and amateur enthusiasts out of the market if the legislation is passed in its current form.  Garden Organic are therefore petitioning for amendments to the proposal for exemptions to be granted for small scale operations and amateur growers, amongst other things.

Support the campaign to amend the legislation

If you would like to find out more about the seed directive and the impacts small seed producers feel it will have, you can follow these links.  They also contain information about lobbying your MEP to register your concerns about the legislation.

Personalised plants

A friend has just been round for coffee and has departed with a half-boot full of hardy geraniums, lysimachia, and alchemilla mollis - all clumps resulting from my autumn tidying and overhaul.  It's great being able to recycle plants this way as well as via the compost heap and it made me think about all the bits and pieces in my garden which I have acquired from friends and family.

Centaureas from mum and dad

Cheng's cerinthe

Aunty Edie's snowdrops

My borders are home to snowdrops and peonies which have followed me from London to Birmingham and originated (via a green-fingered great aunt) from my parent's garden in Derbyshire.  When I look at my eryngiums, I think of them growing like weeds and self-seeding throughout my sister's sandy-soiled, wild garden, and although not prolific breeders in mine,  they still survive my claggier conditions.   The euphorbia amygaloides robbiae which shouts its lime greenness under my trees throughout spring also came to me via the sibling route, along with mourning widow geraniums and feverfews.

Flowerbeds are, in this way,  populated with  people. Walking around the garden, the plants bring to mind the person who gave you those seeds, that snip, or that shoot of something that is now a large character in your garden - it's one of gardening's great pleasures - a kind of herbaceous memory box with different friends and relatives popping up to the fore throughout the seasons.

Another pleasure is being able to share all these with other plant-lovers (especially when it comes to thinning out thugs like dog daisies, hardy geraniums or lysimachia). Nothing is easier than being a generous gardener -  so come round for a coffee and leave with plants!

 Lychnis coronaria from my sister's garden - just gorgeous, but currently sparse after 3 wet years!

Rain at last

Just when my water butts were starting to run dry - it's rained properly today, at last.  Heard Charlie Dimmock talking on the radio yesterday and she made a good point about gardeners having to rethink their planting times in future years because of the dry springs we now seem to get regularly.  Must try to get myself organised to do more autumn sowings of hardy annuals this year - it does seem to make more sense as young plants can develop better root systems during wetter, cooler periods than in the warm dry springs we currently experience. (Imminent snow and sleet forecasts excepted!)

What with my lack of time and the lack of rain last spring, I barely got any annuals established - in terms of either flowers or veg.  Seem to recall a good beetroot crop from a later planting, but lots of other things struggled due to the lack of water in March/April last year.

Have now got more water collection things in place at the allotment, so that should make watering less of a chore this season.  Just have to get some guttering put on the shed to make it more efficient too.

Glad to see that my relaid patio also seems to drain away to the flower beds reasonably effectively and the lettuce seeds I've sprinkled about are also germinating during this cold snap, so there are some upsides to the plunging temperatures after all - even if my tomato seedlings in the greenhouse don't agree.