It isn't just about vegetables

It's not only vegetable seeds that we have been pondering over as we sow quite a few flower seeds too.

Some flower plants raised end up on the plot and others in the garden and some even end up in both. Not the same actual plant of course!

I'm hoping for a better flower year this year as many of our annual sowings didn't thrive due to the extremely dry conditions - when it came to watering the food crops had to take priority.

We have grown sweet peas for ages - it is a flower that just seems to 'go' with the idea of allotments. This year I'm going to try growing more than usual to go for the wow effect! As far as I'm concerned a sweet pea has to have perfume so I'm sticking with the varieties grown last year  (Kings - Perfume Delight and Spencer Mixed) - and adding Sweet Dreams from T&M. I ordered some low growing sweet peas - Snoopea last year but they were substituted with a tall growing variety (not a good substitute when size mattered) so I'm trying to get some seed again this year.

I usually grow some French marigolds and tagetes along the edges of the fruit tree beds. Last year I was amazed to find lots of French marigolds had self -seeded even after last winter. Amazed as they are supposed to be only half hardy and in theory shouldn't have survived but survive they did and lots of them. Obviously they didn't spring up in the places that I want so I just transplanted them.

This got me thinking - usually the marigolds take quite a lot of space in the greenhouse so this year I am toying with the idea of trying to raise them in a seed bed on the plot - maybe under some sort of cloche if necessary - what do you think?

Another addition to my flower list are antirrhinums. I did once try growing these but the germination was poor - I've since learned that they need sowing in a John Innes type compost but the early failure put me off. Then last year some self sown plants popped up in our front garden bed and looked good there so I'm, going to have another try and use them to fill gaps between perennials. I've chosen Snap Happy from Kings which shouldn't grow too tall.

Dahlias are another common allotment flower. I grew some from seed last year, they were quite slow to grow into decent sized plants and the flowers were a bit of a disappointment - lovely colour range but the flower shapes were a bit ragged. I guess this again could have been the conditions - anyway we have saved the tubers and will plant them to give them another chance but I've ordered a packet of a variety called Pompone to add to them. As the name suggests this is a pompom type which I like for cut flowers.

I also tried growing Osteospernum from seed last year - I chose a cheap variety as I wasn't sure how easy they were to grow so I wanted plenty of seed. They were fairly easy so this year I'm trying a different more expensive variety. The ones I planted last year were oranges and yellows so this year I'm going for the purples and whites of a variety called Passion Mixed. The colours are more in keeping with what I expect from osteospernums. I've still lots of last year's seed left so will grow some of them too - there are only 8 seeds of the more expensive variety.

We like to have pansies in tubs for a bit of winter early spring colour and usually I have bought these as plants. This year I'm going to try growing my own from seed and have ordered a couple of varieties - I just hope that they don't all end up the same colour!

I'm also trying to grow a perennial poppy Fruit Punch - We always get a massive amount of annual poppies coming up all over the plot from goodness knows where - we've haven't planted them! What's the betting that the ones that I try to grow are less eager to please?

On plant I didn't order but it looks as though I'm going to end up growing is nemophila - Total eclipse. It was a free packet from Plants of Distinction. It sounds as though it's habit is similar to that of limnanthes - poached egg plants so it will be one for the plot. We started off with just six limnanthes plants and now just look .

It tool the above photo last week - the limnanthes form a dense carpet under the roses but fortunately do no harm. They look great when the are flowering and can even be spotted in an aerial photo.

If you're interested in the full list of my flower choices it's here.