March…I always seem to feel seedy in March! Hopefully, soon I’ll feel seedlings instead!
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Hubby buys me gardening magazines because they come with free seed packets. He gets me about one a week. These are my prizes going only back to December:
Oh my!
Some of these are for seeding outdoors where you want them to grow. So no cineraria, lettuce, wallflower, cornflower or the big sunflower in the top row.
What I did start today:
Cherry tomato Lycopersicon lycopersicum
Morning glory ‘heavenly blue’ Ipomoea tricolor
Sunflower ‘sunburst mix’ Helianthus annus
Penstemon Penstemon hartwegii
Marigold ‘Kees Orange’ Tagetes erecta
Hollyhock ‘Good Golly Miss Holly’ (no botanical name given, but says it is a brand new hollyhock named by Garden News readers)
Sweet pea ‘old spice mix’ Lathyrus odoratus
And the one I’m going to try hardest to keep going – French lavender Lavandula stoechas.
Wish me luck!
Have a few of these myself. The marigolds will seed themselves of course but I still save a few seeds when they are finished blooming.
Haven’t had much success with Lettuce, for some reason. One of the salad veggies I struggle to grow. Considering how much they cost I think I should knuckle down and have another go!
I don’t hold out much hope for the marigolds or the lettuce surviving the billions of slugs in my tiny garden. But, they are pretty and I always did like the unique smell of a marigold flower.
Oddly enough, slugs are no probs, but for the first time ever we have had a plethora of snails.
As a rule, the King Cricket ( or Parktown Prawn as they are called locally – ‘orrible buggers too!) we get here takes care of them and the Hadeda Ibis keeps the Cricket in check.
But for some reason hardly any crickets at all this year, thus the snails have had a mini population explosion.
Why do you have problems with the marigolds?
Ours are rampant and wherever a seed falls they seem to take every time.
I imagine you’s might need cover for your lettuce, yes)
Slugs and snails love to eat marigolds, oddly enough. You would think with such a strong scent they would repel them, but no! We have snails, too – great big ones that I’m sure are edible, if I had a clue how to cook them. Hedgehogs are our only real slug-eaters. The corvids will eat snails, I think, as I find shattered shells on our old railway’s sleepers.
I haven’t found any snails by the Marigolds. Not one. Weird. They are all over the Gazanias and the green veg (Cabbage beans etc)
I don’t think Irish slugs or snails know what gazania even is! I can’t grow anything brassica family, as so many pests here want to eat them, too. I might try broccoli again this year, but the cauliflower was a total disaster, trying to go it pesticide-free.
I will start my seeds on St. Patricks Day…so excited!
What a brilliant way to celebrate the green!
Yes! And if I were in to lots of veggies I would plant English Peas that day, but I stopped a couple of years back.
WOw! Wish our garden magazines had free seeds! Lucky you!
U.K. Magazines have a tendency to do this! I’m not even going to total up what I saved – I have years of seeds now as hubby seems to think I can find room for everything he brings home 🙂
Exciting, nothing like getting a few seeds into pots:-)
It really is! I will never lose my joy at seeing a little nugget turn into a beautiful plant.
Best of luck as you begin the planting process. Haven’t bought a gardening magazine in forever but think it is so cool they (still) come with a “prize” inside. “Good Golly Miss Holly” is going to stick with me for a while. Laughed out loud at that one. Stay seedy!
It’s a mostly UK magazine so I’m impressed with the vote going to a classic Little Richard song! I actually learn next to little from the magazines, but I appreciate his efforts to support my favourite thing to do.
Lovely selection! I can’t grow lavender at all here, it’s too hot, too humid and much too wet. But I have my fingers crossed for you 🙂
A good wee garden for March 🌸
We will see! Seed? Hehehe
Yeah!! Once you plant them all 😂🏡🌳🌴🍇
Well, the seeds are in the dirt, it’s up to them if they want to come and live with me! But I am known for having green fingers up to the elbows 🙂
😬😬😬😬😬😬