2 years ago
Friday, December 1
Wednesday, November 29
Friday, November 24
A dilemma
Some of you may remember that last year I sowed some hardy annuals in September as a sort of experiment. Here's a summary.
This was a success and we were cutting flowers from this bed in May and what's more the plants had much stronger stems than the later sowings.
This year I had intended to do the same thing but circumstances conspired against this plan. We couldn't get to the plot so on 16 September I resorted to plan B. This was to sow the annuals in modules and plant the seedlings out later. I sowed some seeds left over from spring sowing but I bought a couple of varieties to supplement these.
The trays were placed on a patio table and just left to the elements, just as they would have been if sown direct.
The cornflowers germinated quickly taking just over a week to show through the compost.
By 8 October most of the seeds had germinated with the exception of the godetia which was fairly old seed.
The seedlings looked as shown below on 20 November. It's really the best success that I have had in germinating larkspur.
So for the dilemma. The seedlings still don't look sturdy enough to survive the trauma of being planted out on the plot. It is also rather late to be planting in the now cold soil, so I am now moving to plan C. This is to leave the seedlings in the modules and move them either into the cold frame or cold greenhouse when the winter weather is at it's worst. The danger is that they may be forgotten and dry out, so I will have to make an effort to look after them. If they survive the plan is to transplant them out on the plot as early in spring as possible when I think the conditions are favourable.
I wonder whether there will be a plan D?
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