No Need to Hurry...

“No need to hurry, no need to sparkle, no need to be anybody but oneself”.

I think that these words by Virginia Woolf should resonate with all of us particularly at this time of the year!
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*Virginia Woolf also wrote in her diary on the 2nd January 1931: 

• Here are my resolutions for the next 3 months; the next lap of the year.
• To have none. Not to be tied.
• To be free & kindly with myself, not goading it to parties: to sit rather privately reading in the studio.
• To stop irritation by the assurance that nothing is worth irritation
• Sometimes to read, sometimes not to read.
• To go out yes – but stay at home in spite of being asked.
• As for clothes, to buy good ones.

 
So, with this sage advice in mind…

I’m always itching to start sowing seeds, but I am trying to be patient!  However, all the professionals intone the benefit of waiting until there is more energy available from the sun in terms of both light and heat.  Without these optimum conditions seeds and seedlings will struggle to germinate and get going.  Actually – that advice could be applied to this particular human-being too!

So, instead, brew a decent cuppa, grab the seed box  and do an inventory of the miracle giving paper-pockets already in your grubby hands…
It’s worth creating a simple crop plan to see what might be for the visionary season ahead, working out rough numbers for each bed to help work out how much trawling of the garden-centre or on-line shop might be required.​

• Are there a stack of unopened packets having become  a tad over-optimistic about available time and space, last year?!
• Are there those that are so out-of-date they should be tossed into the compost bin? Or into the hedge as usually happens at  No.6.
• Perhaps you can pass on any varieties which didn’t do well in your soil/growing conditions, or half-finished packets that might not be enough for the whole season, but a neighbour could use.

However, it’s always good to have some back-up seeds, like radish or turnips, as they are good ‘fillers’.  Having said that, I have never successfully grown either of these vegetables!  As you know my modus operandi generally involves planting out what I think are particular seedlings and then they seem to morph into something else… case in point for summer 2024, my enthusiasm for and nurturing of the difficult-to-grow Florence Fennel - which I was showing off about to everyone – which turned out to be run-of-the-mill normal fennel, but at least it wasn’t dill which looks pretty much the same and would be even more embarrassing!

Oh well. So, on this dull, grey and cold day I’m donning multiple layers and the posh Barbour wellies and trudging off to the greenhouse for take stock!  With a cuppa - obvs.
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*taken from a piece by Alice Vincent in 2021, for the Penguin books website.