Seeds

The Canny Gardener – Growing Food

**Harvest** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Perhaps I watched too many apocalyptic disaster movies in the 7os, but I have always had a little part of my brain telling me that I should be prepared for anything. That means, above all, being able to feed myself should civilisation, as we know it, fall into chaos.

Don’t worry, I am not a bonkers survivalist, but I do think that we owe it to ourselves to learn a little resilience and self-reliance. Rising food prices and shortages, climate change and global instability means that if we can contribute even a little to our own food stocks, we should. If nothing else, growing our own food makes us appreciate it (and therefore not waste it) and value those that labour every day to provide for us.

As anyone who has attempted growing their own food will tell you, it is hard and fraught with difficulties: garden pests, frosts, storms, heat and drought all work against us. It is always rather miraculous to me that we can produce anything at all. But we do and the challenge makes the reward so much sweeter.

**An urban vegetable garden (Sadly, mine looks nothing like this.**)
Image: Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The joy of playing in the dirt

Unfortunately, my MS means that I cannot garden nearly as vigorously or effectively as I should like. However, it doesn’t stop me from gardening at all. In fact, the time I spend outside makes me feel immensely better – even if it takes a toll on my energy levels. As a child, I loved playing in the dirt; as an adult, I’m no different. And no doubt this is why:

There’s a reason that the rose or veggie garden is often a person’s “happy place.” There is a natural antidepressant called Mycobacterium vaccae found in soil. The bacterium stimulates serotonin production, the stuff that makes you feel happy.
https://www.promixgardening.com/en/tips/gardening-health-benefits

Not only does the soil stimulate our happy hormones, but it can give us a Vitamin B hit (if we don’t clean our hands too perfectly.) Its other health benefits include physical well being through exercise and mental well being from immersion in nature.

And if you are growing fruit and vegetables, you get to enjoy organic, zero miles food for very little cost.

Since I can’t ‘dig for victory’, I have become rather focused on getting the most from my garden with the least physical effort. One way that we manage that is by planting lots of fruit trees and fruit canes.

The lazy gardener

My wonderful and very old apple tree gives us enough cooking apples for about a year. I’ve frozen pounds of them and stored the rest in the cool. No, they don’t have the bright waxy sheen of the supermarket ones, but they are super tasty.

In the last few years, we have planted a sort of orchard in the garden with mulberries, apples, pears, plums, quince and cherries in side beds and the vegetable patch. They require little more than watering when it is very hot and the occasional prune. If you want to be a lazy gardener like me – plant a tree!

The next easiest thing to do is soft fruits. We have numerous raspberry canes, which I have divided to make more. Our currants and gooseberries are sometimes raided by the birds. But that’s okay. They need feeding too.

**A gardener’s reward** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Herbs are perhaps the easiest of all and take up little room. A salad supplemented with various herbs becomes a thing of beauty. You can always grow some inside with sprouts to give you a macro salad for a micro price.

My favourite tip was given by a friend who discovered that Bigga Dried Peas (which cost 90p at Sainsbury’s) are ideal for pea shoots. I simply pop then in the soil, water and enjoy when they are about three inches high.

By far the most economical way to garden is to buy seeds and perhaps bring them on a little in a greenhouse or window sill. Some plants, like rocket, don’t even need that, they will merrily self-seed all round your garden (mine even made it to the front garden) and feed you with no effort in perpetuity. Mint too is a terror for invading garden space, but I love mint and am happy for it to grow anywhere.

When you grow your own, there are invariably little surprises the following spring. This year, I’ve found some spring onions, chard and parsley that I can make no claims on nurturing.

Once you have planted your seeds and brought them to maturity, you can collect those seeds and use them again. Dry them carefully and keep in a dark, cool place. Last year, it was so hot that my Indian corn simply wilted. It did manage a few cobs though and I rescued those in hopes of better results this year.

**A little small to eat, but good to plant** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Free food

I have my seeds from last year and my wish list for this, and I have a couple of experiments I’d like to conduct. One is to practise companion planting using the three sisters of Native American agriculture: corn, beans and squash and the other is gardening with kitchen scraps and more unusual crops.

You can regrow almost anything and the link here gives you instructions on how: https://www.ruralsprout.com/regrow-vegetables/ This year, I’ve also tried to grow some more exotic seeds: chickpeas, lemons, olives and dates. It might be a complete failure, of course, but it has cost me only a few minutes’ effort. Even if they simply turn into pretty plants, I shall be very happy with that.

**Fingers crossed** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

The key component to any gardening is patience and growing from seed requires a great deal of it, even from the most accommodating of plants. But watching a beautiful plant emerge from something as tiny as a seed awakens in us proper awe for the mysteries of nature.

Gardening for all

Few things give me as much pleasure as my garden and the produce it yields. And although we are not all able to do the heavy work of gardening, we still can enjoy doing what we can. My sessions actually digging/planting/weeding are very short but give me a great deal of satisfaction and necessary exercise. Planning and preparing the garden are equally enjoyable and growing little things inside, likewise.

Though I doubt we will need to be self-sufficient any time in the near future, we can always venture towards self-sufficiency to improve our health; make a positive impact on the environment and provide ourselves with delicious, fresh food.

And if we’re canny, we can do it for almost no cost at all.

NB

My lovely friend Elizabeth is coming to visit from America on Friday, so I shan’t be writing a post next week. We shall be too busy chatting and drinking tea. But I shall be back after that. I hope you’ll join me then.

The Canny Gardener – Flowers

Forgive me if I am preaching to the choir here, because I know that many of my readers are expert gardeners and far more competent than me. So I shall be writing mainly for those who, as I do, wish to be better gardeners and I hope I may even have something for the more accomplished.

Gardening is expensive. Perhaps not as expensive as the Victorian horticulturalists who spent vast fortunes on plant hunting expeditions and heating enormous greenhouses containing rare and delicate species. (The greenhouse at Chatsworth House was so huge that you could drive through it in a horse and carriage). Nor do our more interesting varieties of daffodil cost hundreds of pounds. Yes, even the cultivated, humble daffodil was once a rare collector’s piece.

But a visit to a garden centre usually results in returning with one’s purse considerably lighter. We go in, determined to only buy something for that space on the edge of the border, and come out laden with flowers, herbs, shrubs and even trees.

**Halls of temptation** Image: Zoe Deal on Unsplash

Garden centres are to gardeners as catnip is to cats. It is too much to ask that we don’t succumb to their charms? The solution, I would argue, is simply not to go there. After all, there are many other ways to source plants.

The garden centre alternative

One reason to limit one’s addiction to garden centres is, strangely, an environmental one. Almost all garden centre plants are contained in plastic when you probably have more than enough plastic plant containers at home.

Further, their plants will have been doused in pesticides and other chemical nasties. This is true even for those plants sold as ideal for pollinators, since ironically, they contain toxins detrimental to bees. (If you want to discover more on this topic, I highly recommend Dr Goulson’s The Garden Jungle.) Those of us trying to garden organically are often unwittingly introducing chemicals into our gardens via the soil of garden centre plants. The safest option, therefore, is to grow from seed.

Seeds

If you want to be extra virtuous, you can buy seeds that are organic very easily on-line. The Internet is also the best place to find more unusual species and since seeds are light, postage is seldom a problem.

But before purchasing anything, I’d recommend pulling out all the seeds that you already have. My normal modus operandi would be to go to the garden centre and pick out all the beautiful packets that catch my eye. There is no way that I would have time to plant them all. This year, to combat such craziness, I have checked my seeds and organised them by date of planting.

**Seeds – sorted!** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

If there is space for more, I can note it on my wish list.

One thing I have done is take seeds from the seed heads of successful plants to sow again this year. There are many beautiful flowers that are really easy to recover seeds from including: poppies, love-in-the-mist (Nigella) and honesty. Once the plant has flowered and the seed head/seed formed and dried, simply shake them into an envelope and label.

If you have excess seeds, of course, swap and share with friends. Commercial packets often contain many more seeds that one has space to sow. And those you have taken from garden are likely to thrive in ones close by, since soil conditions and temperature are similar.

Pinch an inch

Perhaps my favourite way of getting new flowers from old is via cuttings. Ever since I was first successful in increasing my number of very bog standard geraniums, I have been hooked.

The way to take cuttings is the same for most plants. Find a healthy stem that has no flowers, snip it about six inches down just under a node (where the leaf emerges from the stem). Strip any leaves that are in the bottom inch or two and pot in well draining soil. If you have rooting hormone powder, dip the bottom end in that first before planting up. Keep the soil moist until roots form and repot.

**Pot plant cuttings** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Last Sunday, I was at my niece’s for brunch and admiring her many and varied pot plants. Would she mind if I took a few wee cuttings to try to bring on at home? Of course not.

Since one good turn deserves another, I took a piece of my now Triffid-like angel-winged begonia for her. I hope it thrives.

**Pass it on**! Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

This plant had been given to me as a tiny cutting and now is about two feet tall. In fact, most of my truly successful plants started with someone else. What started as a tiny rose geranium now fills two giant pots and several smaller ones. A number have been given to friends.

If you don’t have any green-fingered friends to rely upon, there are always cuttings to be taken from walks or even from plants that venture over the fence. My neighbour’s beautiful honeysuckle wandered into my territory and I took a little snip. It’s now a thriving climber.

Self-replicating plants

There are certain plants that are guaranteed to give the novice joy. They are the ones which, with minimal effort on our part, just reproduce. A few years ago, I decided that I wanted some spider plants, but they were not available in the shops. So, I went online and ordered four tiny plants – one an exotic curly one. Their little babies hang adorably from the mother plant and if you want to start a whole new plant, you only have to take a ‘baby’ and plant it in its own soil. I think that here I am a victim of my own success and have more spider plants than I know what to do with and am running out of friends to give them to.

**To this** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

The beauty of bulbs

Spring is my favourite season and I eagerly await the emergence of the first flowers as winter makes its farewell. Our garden is full of bulbs and my husband planted even more last autumn. The wonderful thing with bulbs is not only that they reappear each year, but that they divide and provide ever increasing numbers of flowers. For perfect ones, it is advisable to dig up the bulbs and divide them every few years, but I confess I am too lazy to do that.

I also recycle any lovely flowering bulbs that I have been given. Many a daffodil and hyacinth in my garden began as a gift.

And speaking of gifts, flowers are always the most welcome. I love to give and receive bouquets of garden flowers. They require no air miles or unnecessary packaging. Cuttings and seedlings are wonderful too. When we are all conscious of living costs, such a thoughtful gift delivers without impacting too heavily on our pockets.

**The gift that keeps on giving**
Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Being a canny gardener really means being a little more mindful of how we can use (and reuse) what we already have. And if you really want to purchase plants ready-made, my niece gave me a great tip. Buy the sad ones in the bargain bin! These plants, which might otherwise be thrown away, just need a little nurturing and time. They will almost certainly delight you next year.

Next week, I’ll look a gardening produce on a budget. I hope to see you then.

Seeds

Wondering what to write about this week, I asked my husband for suggestions. ‘Seeds,’ he said and then went on the extol their miraculous qualities and how they act as a rather apt metaphor for life. Seeds? I thought. How on earth am I going to find 1,000 words to write about seeds?

My husband, a newly converted gardener, is currently fascinated by seeds. After planting vast numbers of tulip bulbs, he discovered that they can be propagated by seed. (Who knew?) He then went on to find that if you harvest these seeds, plant them and wait about three years (gardening is not for the impatient) you will get tiny bulbs. Having found that all bulbs can be grown from seed, he then deseeded my giant lilies. And here they are:

**Lily seeds awaiting planting**
Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

If anyone would like some, let me know!

All flowering plants begin as seeds, though some will multiply from there by other methods. For example, strawberries and spider plants reproduce from runners or ‘daughter plants’, which are attached to the parent. I was delighted to discover another wild strawberry plant when weeding in the garden, and my plan is to let them take over the entire area. But overcrowding for plants and people is seldom wise, so strawberries also have berries with the seeds on the outside to give them the opportunity to disperse their seed further afield.

Here’s a little video about the life cycle of plants. It is rather cartoonish, but I confess I could have used such a clear presentation when doing O level biology. (Please skip if you know all this already!)

https://youtu.be/AcSgaUBwIn4

Free gifts

My perambulation around the garden yesterday brought lots of surprises. Seeds had clearly been having a good time exploring new parts. The rocket is incredibly successful at long distance travel and has made it from my veg patch at the far end of the back garden to the front lawn. I was delighted to find new clumps of parsley yards from where they were sown; flowers that hopped up into my raised garden planters and some that had found a location they preferred away from their original beds. Such unexpected gifts are always a joy and if you are not too fussy about keeping your garden in regimented order, it will soon decide where plants are most comfortable and will thrive. We practise a very relaxed version of forest gardening and it certainly works for us.

Autumn’s glory

To compensate for the paucity of flowering plants in this season, autumn generously offers us an alternative. Seed heads are a beautiful addition to any scene and particularly enchanting in autumn’s slanting light. Their delicate silhouettes act as an elegy to summer. For now, they are bare: mere mementoes of warmer days. But in holding the seeds for future seasons, they promise a return to colour and abundance.

**Seed heads at Birling Gap** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Seed heads also make the loveliest displays. I have several in vases throughout the house and some giant allium heads woven through with tiny lights so they look like illuminated chrysanthemums. When fresh cut flowers are not in season, these make the most environmentally friendly alternative.

Feed the birds

Seed heads are a great food source for birds during the lean autumn and winter months. That said, we often tidy the garden and get rid of many of those nutritious food sources, since those ‘dead’ twiggy, stems are less beautiful (at least to some). Reading an edition of Country Living recently, I discovered that some plants we routinely cut back are great bird feeders and will thrive just as well with a spring as an autumn trim. Though this information was too late for some of my lavender, the rest is still flower heavy and I’m trying to be careful only to take out those plants whose seeds have already been eaten or dispersed.

**Lavender – a feast for the birds as well as the eyes**
Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Harvesting seeds

Harvesting seeds could hardly be simpler. One only has to pick the plants (dry if necessary) and shake them out onto paper and transfer to a paper bag. That’s it. I like to make pretty seed envelopes for seeds to share, but just because I like an excuse to play.

This year I am drying my Indian corn kernels. My corn this year didn’t fare well. First they were assaulted by snails, then happily grew during the long, warm spell, only to be assaulted once again, this time by torrential rain and a plague of woodlice. Never mind. Such things are inevitable in gardening. Luckily, they were able to produce just enough to give me seeds for next year. I must let them dry completely then gently pick off the kernels. I’m hoping that the weather and wildlife will be kinder then.

**Enough for next year’s crop**
Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Enough to share

Though seeds are not expensive, they are not especially cheap either – especially for more rarefied varieties as the corn above. When you gather your own seeds, there is always more than enough to go around. Last year, I gave out sunflower and corn seeds and hope they fared better than mine! Many towns will have seed swaps during the autumn, but less formal exchanges between friends is also great. Whatever knowledge you have acquired about location, soil and conditions can be passed on with the packet of seeds.

Planting seeds is an act of hope and, as any gardener will tell you, results in great joy when successful. My husband made a lovely comparison between planting seeds and life. He said, you plant so many, but only a few will make it to completion. Like all endeavours, we work hard and don’t always achieve the outcomes that we hope for. That said, when they do materialise, our labours bloom delightfully and all the effort seems worthwhile.