September Seed Sowing: welcoming autumn
, by Ellen Rignell, 2 min reading time
I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to September this year. The summer has felt relentless and has prompted many of us to question how we can better adapt our gardens to summer droughts.
At the seed farm, the season has come to an end a month ahead of schedule. All the seeds have been harvested, threshed and cleaned. Yields are down by about a third. But strangely, I’m feeling optimistic. Maybe the heat has gone to my head, maybe I’m a little unhinged, who knows, but this early end to the season is opening up a lot of opportunities.
The biggest one is that the premature end to the season has essentially given me 4 weeks of time I wasn’t expecting, and a good chunk of empty bed space. I’m taking full advantage by, as much as I can, shifting my seed sowing to autumn. This is something I’ve been intending to do for some time for two reasons.
The first is that our springs are unreliable. Working on a heavy clay soil like ours means that we’re at the mercy of the heavens, waiting for the rain to relent and the soil to dry out before we have any hope of cultivating and planting. Having autumn sown plants established in the ground means I can bypass all the spring angst.
The second is to do with the summer (and occasional) spring droughts. By sowing and planting in the autumn, all these winter hardy plants can get a solid root system established while there’s plenty of moisture around. This gives the plants a more robust root system which can access reserves of water that spring sown plants will struggle to get hold of.
This week I’ll sow trays and trays of hardy annuals - primrose yellow Calendula ‘Ivory Princess’, rich blue and deep burgundy cornflowers ‘Florist Blue Boy’ and ‘Black Ball’, Persian Cress ‘Wrinkle Cress’, apple-green penny cress, lacey Ammi visnaga & Orlaya, dusky Silene 'Blushing Lanterns', peachy snapdragon ‘Orange Wonder’ and cute pincushion flowers ‘Triple Berries’. I’ll wait until October to begin sowing my sweet peas.
In the vegetable garden I’ll be sowing all of my winter greens - buttery winter-hardy lettuce ‘Wintercrop’, spicy succulent mustards ‘Rouge Metis’ & ‘Golden Frills’, mizuna, verdant spinach ‘Matador’, colourful chard ‘Fireworks’, peppery rocket 'Uber' and 'Astro', tender perpetual spinach ‘Verde da Taglio’, bright magenta kale ‘Red Russian’ and heirloom Tuscan kale ‘Nero di Toscana’.
I honestly can’t wait. September feels like a time to start afresh and what better way to do than by sowing a few seeds.
- Ellen
