Dreaming the Vegetable garden into being – and Sowing seeds

At the time of writing it is deep in the sleepy time of the Solstice and Christmas.

As a grower I find it important to give myself a break like everyone else, and use it as a time of reflection on the up and coming year and the mania that spring brings to the organic grower.

The seed catalogues come plumping through the letterbox, I rescue them from the kids before they get cut up and made in to collages. It’s a time to flick through and dream of the growing season to come, what worked well last year and what I want to have a go at this year. I always chose from the organic and biodynamic options, which are quite wide now, and find over the years I am growing more and more unusual varieties of salads in my glasshouse and polytunnel. With the advent of farmers markets my experience is that people want fruit and vegetables they cannot find on the supermarket shelves and will happily buy knobbly tomatoes, Asian leaves; mibuna, tatsoi, namenia, texel greens, frilly endives from Europe, old fashioned cucumbers that are ridged and huge. And my surprise crop last year was Chinese celery. It grew to be enormous, about twice the size of other celery and people staggered off with it excited about the prospect of celery soup, braised celery, celery cooked the Indian way with gee and spices, and even used for juicing.

I start seed sowing in February, or March, depending upon the weather. If it is too cold the slugs will graze them all off, or the mice collect them from the seed trays and store them for later. Too warm and there is a danger of a cold snap and they will all be frosted when they are at their most vunerable.

The seeds are sown according to the biodynamic calendar, leaves when the moon is in a water sign, roots when the moon is in an earth sign, flowers when the moon is in an air sign. The Biodynamic calendar tells you which is which; it changes every 2-3 days. It requires a convergence of the moon with the right sign of the zodiac, reasonable weather (not snowing, pouring with rain, blowing a gale, or freezing cold), my youngest daughter being in the right mood to come out with me, and the arrival of the potting compost to get the seeds sown, it is quite a quick job once the alignment is correct. If not I often just sow them anyway and hope for the best! Last year it took four goes and it resulted in the best fed mice in the whole of Essex and a huge seed bill. This year I will try to do better.

The other reflective job at this time of the year is the application of preparation 500. This is a Biodynamic preparation that is applied to the soil in the winter months to sensitise the soil to the cosmic forces. I buy in the preparations as my garden is too small to make them myself. It then requires potentising by stirring for an hour before application to the soil. A small amount, enough to fill the palm of the hand is mixed with a barrel full of water, stirring in one direction and then the other to create a vortex and then a moment of chaos as the direction is changed. I do it in my glasshouse, with some friends. I usually make tea and we have a chat. It is hard physical work to do alone but with a few people it is very social. The preparation is then flicked on to the ground in small quantities. I fill buckets and load them into a wheel barrow, and trundle up my long and thin orchard. Even though I have planted hedges it is not a very private place and on both sides there are holdings of a similar size with my neighbours regularly walking up and down about their work. It is winter as well and the leaves are off. It is a deeply satisfying task; the children love it and understand it intuitively. But it is difficult to explain to conventional growers if they are not of the same mindset. In this context I have become a covert Preparation 500 applier. I like my neighbours and I don’t want them to think I am a witch; I want them to let their children play with mine. This is after all the village where the witch finder general found his first witch 400 years ago. So I tend to do it when it is getting dark, and I walk down the middle of my orchard flicking as far as I can reach without going to close to the edges.

The results are now, in my opinion, becoming evident. The soil is fantastic, the crops healthy, the produce tastes great. Customers at the farmers market come back week after week and tell me how fantastic the fruit is. So I will continue my covert Preparation applications.

Seasonal Notes

Sowing seeds
The seed packets give instructions of sowing each type of seed. To ease the confusion however most seeds fit into three categories;
1. Those that must be sown direct into the soil are mainly the root crops such as carrots, parsnips, beetroot, Broad beans they can be sown from February onwards.
2. Those that cannot withstand a frost must be sown first in a seed tray and then transplanted after the last frost is over. Sow in March transplant late April, this includes pumpkins, courgettes, sunflowers, tomatoes and peppers, French beans.
3. Those that can withstand a frost but do better sown in seed trays and transplanted later, start sowing February and March plant out mid April. This includes Lettuce, Brassicas, and Leeks.

Catalogues for organic and biodynamic seeds
Suffolk Herbs / Kings Seeds (01376) 570000
Tuckers Seeds. (01364) 652233
Stormy Hall Seeds. (01287) 661368

Biodynamic Sowing and Planting Calendar 2006 by Maria Thun and Preparation 500 available from the Biodynamic Agriculture Association. (01453) 759501


Marina O’Connell
January 2009
You can visit my Apricot Centre website at www.apricotcentre.co.uk