Wild about Greenwich

Now, I’m the first to admit I am an edible gardening obsessive, nay bore – I can spot the difference between a Gardener’s Delight tomato plant and a Sungold at 10 paces and am boffinishly discerning about the type of kale I will grow in my little London garden (Cavolo Nero best with sausages, Green Curly Kale prettier in soups). But when it comes to wild flowers – those I can’t eat anyway – I’m a dunce. I love looking at them, obviously, we all do, but if it’s not Buddleja growing out of railway siding wall or dandelions on a sports field I’m not too confident.

So when I came across this blog post by Dusty Gedge of Green Roofs UK fame, I got a bit excited since this patch of new ‘meadow’ is minutes walk from my house and I’ve often walked by it without a moment’s distraction from my takeaway latte/toddler screeching down the ramp into the path of incoming cars.

I intend to go down there later and gaze at it purposefully and then return throughout the summer. Maybe, ‘owning’ this little patch of wildflower meadow will be the beginning of a new love for wildflower spotting. At the very least, walking past a woman with a notebook might prevent the daily wave of homecoming Greenwich commuters from bunging their Evening Standards into the grass.

What to do in the edible garden in March

seedpackets

Oh March, so full of promise, so full of false starts. The minute John Humphrys says ‘Good morning it’s the 1st of March’ it’s all I can do to restrain myself from leaping out of bed and into the garden with an armful of seed packets and broadcasting them beardy parable-like into the wind.

This would be silly. Most of them would sulk and rot in the cold soil. For spring is a temperamental animal. We want it so badly we conveniently forget it happens slowly, not overnight. One day it might be all sun, buzzy bees and blossom, the next you’d swear it was mid winter with a Tupperware sky, relentless drizzle and a night frost. So I hide the back door key and, instead, settle for indoors sowing in plug trays on the kitchen windowsill – aubergines, sweet peppers, tomatoes, basil.

apricotblossom

Once the apricot blossom has come and gone, I deem it’s safe to sow direct into garden soil. The traditional maxim is, if you can sit on the ground in your pants (for which, American readers, read underpants) without leaping up in shock then it’s warm enough to sow into. I have no intention of sitting on my garden soil in salopettes let alone pants so the apricot blossom test works for me.

lettucesonions

So what can you sow direct into the soil outside in March?
Radishes, spinach, chard, peas, beetroot, carrots, broad beans, lettuce, wild rocket, spring onions. And don’t forget you can now plant your potatoes too.

chitt

And what could you be sowing inside in a heated greenhouse or sunny windowsill?
Tomatoes, sweet peppers, chillis, aubergines, basil

tomms

And now for some things about sowing I wish someone had told me when I started so I wouldn’t have made so many mistakes…

1. Tomato, chillis, aubergine and pepper seedlings need to be in a really warm place while they’re germinating (inside the house works best), but once they’re up they’re surprisingly happy in an unheated greenhouse as long as they have some bottom heat. A heated mat is a great investment – I set it to about 15-18 degrees C and all my seedlings seem fine (as long as I remember to check the compost doesn’t dry out). Outside they get plenty of light so won’t get all weedy like the ones you raise inside the house. And the added bonus is they won’t take up every available surface and window of your house turning it into a dimly-lit horticultural Miss Havisham’s.

showercap

2. Hotel shower caps make great mini propagators (above). Pop one over a plug tray of germinating seeds. And it’s recycling, people. Note the comma there – I wouldn’t recommend actually recycling people.

3. Most germinating vegetable seeds – with the exception of parsley and lettuce –don’t need light to germinate. But the minute they’re up, take off any propagator lid and get them into the lightest spot you can find.

3. A fleece tunnel is another useful bit of spring kit – pop it over rows germinating seeds outside to keep the soil a bit warmer and the neighbourhood cats off.

4. Growing Success Advanced Organic Slug Killer. Changed my life.