All Go on the Sowing Front

Ingenuity in the Propagation Polytunnel

Pippa sowing rocket in the polytunnel

Seed sowing is one of those jobs best saved for a wet day, when the weather isn’t suited to outdoor work — and we have had plenty of those recently, so we have no excuse not to be right up to date with our sowing schedule! Consequently, the propagation tunnel in the garden and Martin’s greenhouse at home are filling up rapidly (see picture below).

To date, we have mainly been sowing crops for the polytunnel — including salads and kohlrabi — but this week sees us sowing our first onions: a much-anticipated early summer crop that we harvest with their green leaves, much sweeter than cured onions.

The salads growing in the polytunnels are on a real go-slow at the moment, though. This dull weather means there are no signs yet of the ‘salad storm’ that usually hits us in late February and early March. In fact, we are currently harvesting winter purslane, with organic lettuce bought in from our wholesaler going into the salad mix alongside it. But with less harvesting to do (it takes about 20 minutes to harvest all our winter purslane for the week), that leaves us ample time to continue the many and varied tasks around the site, making it even more beautiful and functional, we hope.

In fact, the propagation bench you can see in the picture has had an upgrade, with capillary matting laid on top to aid watering. Made from recycled polyester fibres, one end sits in a water reservoir and, through capillary action, the whole mat becomes wet, thus providing a steady supply of water for the seed trays above, which have holes in the base. This will greatly reduce the amount of watering we need to do — the seedlings will effectively water themselves as they draw moisture up from the matting below. Ingenious, eh!

Propagation bench in the polytunnel with capillary matting