Week 5 (2023)

Seed sowing calendar + let the growing begin

I’ve just finished the seed sowing calendar for 2023 (and the grow shelves are filling up fast). Some growers or gardeners use an app to keep track of when to sow things, but for the life of me I can’t imagine using my phone for that. Let’s get tactile; pen and paper, printed calendars. Scribble, erase, highlight. Some would say there’s an easier, and faster, way to do things, but I resist. Increasingly, I notice the widening gap between my technology skills and those of the next generation and the generation after that. It’s hard not to fall behind when you struggle with technology & social media and its increasing role in our lives. I resist, yes, mostly because I remember how good the days before information overload were.

I digress. My hand-written calendars are getting sorted out and I’ve been working on this new website you’re seeing now. The first newsletter will be out soon and plans for our first cut flower plant sale this May are being finalized. (More to come, soon!)

Here in week five most of the perennials have been sown, the lisianthus are still tiny but doing well, and the eucalyptus is chugging along just as slowly. It’s almost time to wake up the ranunculus and anemone; they’ll get soaked then pre-sprouted and planted out in the greenhouse (unheated) in early-mid March. Cold-hardy annuals, like bells of Ireland, larkspur, dianthus, phlox and snapdragon, will be sown soon for an April transplant. I guess year four has officially begun. What challenges await, I wonder…