Love your rubbish

STOP! There are items that you may find yourself putting in a recycling box or absent-mindedly discarding in the rubbish bin, which are invaluable for your windowsill garden or outdoor plot.

As previously mentioned (in the post: 'It Begins...') now is the time to start germinating a few seeds (including tomatoes, onions, spinach, leeks, cauliflower and flora <-- I refer to flowers, not margarine. 

PROBLEM

In the past I have fervently sown a glut of seeds into pots, only to then realise that I do not have enough trays to place underneath to contain the water [which obviously must be applied to the said seeds in order for them to germinate].  Has this happened to you? Don't want to fork out for expensive pieces of plastic at the gardening centre? The latter makes me exceptionally angry, i.e: why, why gardening centre/ supermarket are you charging me £3 for a piece of black plastic with a rim, WHY?
I have some suggestions.

Plastic trays proving their use

SOLUTION

Rummage in your bin/ recycling for:

Food trays - from takeaway food; mushrooms, minced meat [wash well], fig trays, biscuit trays, etc
Lids - from ice-cream tubs, jars

Yoghurt pots

Little tubs that have contained things like coleslaw, hummus, etc.

 In addition, something I have discovered which is useful for germinating seeds is... empty Port boxes!
The plastic sliding cover helps create a little greenhouse-condition inside for the seeds.

The Joy of Poo

me in a dung heap, oh yes.

Yes, we should all be getting our [gloved] hands on some of this fabulous stuff and churning it into the soil in which we shall be growing our veg.  Manure fills the ground with nutrients and makes your plants very, very happy indeed.  In turn, that means that you will be very, very happy when your pumpkins are the size of a small child.  Hurrah for poo.

how to get the poo that you want

HORSE DUNG
I've been to get some free manure today from my friend who owns horses.  More often than not, horse-owners have a stinking abundance of manure which they will gladly give away for free, or very very cheaply.  Try asking on Facebook, looking in Freegle (I've seen people posting 'offer: manure' recently] or the Admag/ your local advertising paper.

get the moist and warm stuff from the bottom of the dung heap

Failing that, find a horse owner, march right up to their rosy-cheeked face and politely ask them if they've got any spare horse droppings which you can bag.  You'll want the nicely rotted stuff from the bottom of the dung heap.

CHICKEN/ POULTRY
Poultry plop is used vastly in growing things - it's usually in a concentrated powder or granule form (Wilkinsons do a pretty cheap and effective version). 

OTHER POO
Got a pet chinchilla? Guinea pig? Rabbit?  Collect their droppings and mix them with a bit of sawdust, leave it to rot for a little while and then mix with wild abandon into your garden. Voila!

So, to wrap up: If you're not only windowsill gardening and you've got soil which you're going to be planting in, get some manure and churn it into the ground.  Simple and effective.

Seeds ahoy!

The lucky recipients of the 5 seed packs I have posted today are:

Sarah Macfarlane, Tamara Greaves, Tim Barker, Martine Burrell and Gem Lewis. 

I hope you enjoy my frugal offerings!

Here's a pic of the finished packs:

Also my tomato seeds have sprouted; they're so fast to germinate.  Sowing some now means you will have earlier tomato crops, even if you don't pop them outdoors until may.  Doing so from now on, at weekly intervals, means that crops will be ready in week after week, and not all at once, so you can enjoy them for longer!

Free seeds!

How to get FREE SEEDS*
*if not free, available for a veritable pittance, yes indeed.

magazines

Free potato grow bag kit and five packs of vegetable seeds worth £15.99 when you buy Sainsbury's Magazine March edition (£1.60).  
There's postage and packing at £4.90.  All in all it's not too bad a deal I'd say.  
You could just save your own potatoes at home though...

websites

Banrock Station wines are offering free wildflower seeds to the first 5,000 people to register their interest.  Follow the link above, pop in your details and voila! It's for the benefit of bees, so it's a good cause too.

Farm in my Pocket
Some lovely self-sufficient expert gardeners are giving away free intriguing varieties of these veg:
Pak Choi, Parnsip, Pea, Bean, Runner Bean - and the most enormous heart-shaped Tomato I have ever seen, called 'Heart of Catalonia'. All you have to do is email them, then they send you their address and you send them one self-addressed envelope per different vegetable type.  Nice people :)

Garden Swap Shop
On this website you can swap, buy or sell seeds & plants.  There are some very interesting varieties available - like white aubergine/ eggplant, lovely.

telephone

 

For a Which? free guide to growing your own vegetables, and some free 'Gardener's Delight' Tomato seeds.  Call 0800 533 081 (for free) or text 'PLANT' (text is also free) to 80057 and quote reference: VEG388F.  If you do it by text, they call you back at their nearest convenience.  I am yet to have my call - but assume they will attempt to get people to subscribe for something [not free!], so just don't do that: easy as pie.  Hope it works for everyone.

charity begins in the home

• I do hope you are saving some seeds from all the fruit and veg you are eating?  Keeping a few potatoes aside, letting their little tendrils grow? Good.  You can also trade seeds with your friends, if they're into that sort of thing of course, and don't think you're being 'seedy' (Pahaha! Err, I'm sorry... Bad, bad joke.)

beg, borrow or 'steal'

• Know anyone who works in a kitchen? Get them to save some seeds from peppers, lemons, etc, whilst preparing their fresh produce - they'll only go in the bin otherwise.

• Freegle - post 'WANTED: ANY VEG/ GARDEN SEEDS', in your local group.  Keep your eye out for things like manure also, which crop up unnoticed unless you think to look for it. (More on manure tomorrow - yippee)

• Allotments: This is more relevant to later on in the year.  Allotments often have open days in the summer, where you can pop along and marvel at the accomplishments of others; perhaps picking up some free seeds along the way...

• What I like to call: 'gathering from nature'.  Picture the scene: It is a pleasant, fresh day (of any season); you are dandily strolling down the road on your way to work/ a friends'/ the pub.  But, Lo, what is this, lurching well over the perimeter of a private property?  Could it be? Yes, yes! It IS a Passiflora/ apple tree/ fruit bush/ grape vine/ rosemary bush [NB: easily propagated from a small cutting]/ attractive plant.  Perchance as you passed this magnificent display, didst thou perplexingly procure a pocketful? I thought you may have.

Disclaimer: In no way am I supporting the outright pinching from another's property.  Only if it's dangling in your face/ a health hazard/ going to get cut down anyway.  Then that's NOT stealing.

It begins: bargain seeds, free cloches

Now is the time of year we need to shake the dust off our feathers and start planning and preparing for the spring.

bargain seeds (27p)
It's a good time to be sowing onions, tomatoes, leeks and aubergine/ eggplant, if growing from seed.  Yesterday I bought all of these seeds (right)
from LIDL for 27p a pack. The Nasturtiums are from B&Q for 48p.

Don't forget to gather seeds from food you eat, especially squash and pumpkin, because these are quite expensive to buy; e.g. £4.95 in B&Q (gasp).  Why spend money buying seeds which you can essentially resource for free?
Grow them inside by a window for the time being - we have them in a cheap plastic mini-greenhouse on the inside of the patio door.

free plastic cloches
Start saving plastic bottles - ideally 2 Litre Coke/ Pepsi bottles.  Peel the labels off, then cut off the end with the nozzle. You can use these for mini-cloches to protect your seedlings later on in the spring, when you transplant them outside.