This week: Covid, equinox, seeds and seedlings

Just as spring equinox arrives (a highlight of the year for me, signalling the real end of winter darkness and inertia), I’ve finally come down with Covid-19. So whilst it’s been beautiful sunny spring weather here in London this weekend I’ve been holed up at home feeling sorry for myself (well, not very sorry actually – mainly I’m grateful not to have it too severely, and not to have caught the earlier more dangerous strains before the vaccine was available and before our incredible health service had found effective treatments).

This week, before getting knocked over by Covid, I’ve been sowing more seeds and potting on seedlings.

I potted on some tomatoes – they’re now on a windowsill in the house, and will go out into the cold frame this week as the nights are all forecast to be above 5 degrees C for the next couple of weeks so they should be ok. I don’t want to keep them indoors any longer than necessary, as they’ll get spindly and weak.

I’ve sown a few different kinds of sunflowers so I can enjoy their cheerful silliness dotted around my allotment at the height of summer, and so that the birds can have some food in the autumn:

• Ruby Sunset – a lovely branching variety with dark red flowers
• Sonja – a smaller variety for cut flowers
• Small Yellow Flower – tall but branching with lots of small flowers, also good for cutting
• Velvet Queen – a branching variety with lots of lovely burnt ember coloured flowers
• Medium Red Flower – another branching one with varying shades of red flowers
• Sunzilla – grown purely for its ridiculous height and size – the flowers can grow up to 24 inches, its leaves are enormous and it can grow 10ft tall

I also sowed an early batch of winter squashes. I’d like to plant these out around the middle of April or start of May (depending on the night temperatures at that point) on a pile of still-warm half-rotted manure and a plastic cloche to keep them warm in case of any late frosts, so now is a good time to get them going indoors before a bit of hardening off in the cold frame in a couple of weeks’ time.

I’ve sown a few varieties (I could easily have got even more carried away and ordered and sown more – I do love a winter squash!):

• Ute Indian
• Red Kuri – a nice small round variety
• Early Butternut
• Uchiki Kuri (which I think might be the same as Red Kuri – not absolutely sure….)
• Butternut

I forgot about the Blue Hungarian – I’ll sow those this week.

These plants should start fruiting about 4 months after sowing, so we should see our first fruits by mid-July with any luck.

I used to sow squashes in April to plant out in late May, as per the packet instructions, but was often taken by surprise with how early others on my allotment successfully plant out their squashes, and our south London site doesn’t get much frost at all, and very rarely any after March. I also find that once it’s really hot they can struggle to get going. So this year I’m sowing them a bit earlier. If they fail I can still sow another batch in April and get back on track but with luck I’ll be able to get ahead a bit.

I’ve taken delivery of a cubic metre of green waste compost which I’ll apply as a spring mulch to my flower beds in the garden. I’ve been trying to rejuvenate the soil since we moved in 3 years ago as it was completely bereft of all life when we moved in: very few plants and a dusty, dry and grey appearance to the soil. And then there was the new bed, filled with some really terrible quality topsoil (consisting largely of sand) that I had delivered during lockdown. The area under the tree was particularly dry and lifeless as well.

I’ve been applying a thick mulch of compost to all the beds twice a year – a combination of bought in stuff and home-made stuff depending on what’s available. It’s definitely working: the soil is much healthier, more water retentive, more aggregated and more full of worms than it was when we got here. But it will be a few years before this regular ritual really starts to pay off fully and deeply – this is a slow, patient game of building up soil organic matter and life gradually over time. I’m looking forward to being back on my feet so I can get back outside and get this mulching done 🙂

Outside in the garden this week the snakeshead fritillaries have started to come out, the scilla are in flower and the deciduous shrubs are noticeably starting into growth. Spring is most definitely here, at last.