Morning Light: The Fetchland Gardening Wire

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Wriggling Snake Mar 2020 12:40pm, 31 Mar 2020 26,065 posts	0 Wriggling Snake Indeed, back to the garden, the lawn needs attention, my parsnips have still not appeared.....
jacdaw Mar 2020 12:41pm, 31 Mar 2020 2,913 posts	0 jacdaw You can sterilise compost in oven or microwave, I believe.
Rosehip Mar 2020 12:50pm, 31 Mar 2020 15,471 posts	0 Rosehip I've been trying to germinate parsnips on damp kitchen roll - I'm sure someone told me about doing it that way, then planting them with the paper once you know they're viable. No sign of life as yet (~a week in )
Angus Clydesdale Mar 2020 1:56pm, 31 Mar 2020 17,315 posts	0 Angus Clydesdale Parsnips are notoriously difficult to germinate.
jacdaw Mar 2020 2:44pm, 31 Mar 2020 2,914 posts	0 jacdaw Especially if you've had the seed a while. My local shop had no veg seed left... except parsnip.
Angus Clydesdale Mar 2020 5:25pm, 31 Mar 2020 17,316 posts	0 Angus Clydesdale I ordered a load of seeds online. More than 10 days ago now. I emailed a chase-up and, to be fair, they got straight back to me to say that its really busy and their lead-time is now 14 days (up from 3ish). So I'm hoping they'll arrive this weekend. I'm not too bothered as it's early up here, ground is still very cold and we'll catch up in the summer with long light evenings. I was mostly worried they'd be intercepted along the way and sold for huge profits on the black market!
Flatlander Mar 2020 5:34pm, 31 Mar 2020 1,630 posts	0 Flatlander I've been digging up some of my mint to make way for planting the last of my seed potatoes. I like mint but it is as rampant as raspberries!
Columba Mar 2020 5:52pm, 31 Mar 2020 19,539 posts	0 Columba Apparently you can use home-made compost (full of weed seeds) topped with a thickish layer of bought-in compost, thick enough so the weedlings can't grow through it to the light. That's if you can find any compost to buy in. I tried for years to grow Welsh poppies, saving seed from the flowers which established themselves along the edges of pavements. Eventually one came up; and I've had them ever since, just by leaving them to do it themselves. Californian poppies also seed themselves. They even vary in colour; I have a few that have white (or very pale cream) flowers.
D2 Mar 2020 6:01pm, 31 Mar 2020 11,604 posts	0 D2 I have two rows of early potatoes in now and the trenches dug for my main crop which I wont plant until mid April. I've got several rows worth of broad bean seeds in pots which I will plant out soon and I've got cloches over the proposed rows of parsnips warming the soil before I plant. All the onion sets and garlic bulbs in are and settled too. It feels like some good progress but cant do much more till it warms up a bit here. I have some cucumbers and tomatoes in pots ready to go in the polytunnel but I'm waiting a bit longer just in case we get a severe frost, same with the courgettes in pots though I could cover those with cloches but I'm hanging on a bit. I did harvest some rhubarb for my tea tonight!
Columba Mar 2020 6:03pm, 31 Mar 2020 19,541 posts	0 Columba Still getting overnight frosts here (mid-Wales, high ground).