Micro-leaves for a virtuous January, re-using my Christmas tree and SHOPPING
Hello friends! - Who's happy about a bit of new year normality? <hand shoots skyward>
Monday: Unbridled joy is what I feel; I love Christmas and everything, but I love it even MORE when it's over. Today I celebrate with my Niwaki snips, gathering up all the floppy brown leaves of my many iris sibirica, pony-tail style, and snipping them close to the ground, where I can see exciting new pale green shoots peeping up from the ground. They are not the only pale green babies emerging. I can see crocuses and allium shoots, and the promising fat buds of sedum at the base of my still-beautiful seedheads.
Tuesday: I order seeds. It's still gardening to order seeds <left hand on hip, right hand out there, in your face, Beyonce style>.... Here is my list (for now, anyway). It's a short one, because I have learned from experience that I only ever manage to sow, let alone see through to adult-hood, about half of what I buy each year. For this reason, I tend to begin in a very small way, and then order more as and when I need them.
LIST
1. A micro-leaf mix from Mark Diacono at Otter farm (see below)
2. Alpine strawberries (more of them, also from Otter farm). The variety is called 'Mignonette'
3. Demon chilli peppers. - a very hot dwarf variety with upward-pointing miniature jalapeño shaped fruits. Heat is intense at 9000 on the Scoville scale - perfect for someone who likes everything spicy.
...and that's it. I've already sown my sweet peas and I still have lots of salad leaf seeds, peas and chard left over from last year. The only thing I still need are nasturtiums, for which I will go to the shops
Wednesday: I snip a few choice branches off my old christmas tree and start denuding them of their spines. These will serve well as pea sticks and supports, both for paperwhites and for sweet peas. Removing the spines is a bit of a faff so I give up and put the branches in the shed where they will fall off on their own. I also chop (finally) the seedheads of the echinacea which made my late summer so utterly majestic. They have been beautiful as black dead things, but are now getting soggy so it's time for them to go.
The seeds fly absolutely everywhere as I snip - such a clever plant to explode like a bomb at the slightest touch; if any of these seeds take, I shan't mind a bit.
Thursday: Glory of glories, my five minutes turns into an hour of bliss. This is a rare occurrence, and is one of the reasons I love term-time so very much. I go out to move a few things around in my shed; to - quite literally - POTTER. I tidy tools that have been discarded randomly (I've still not mastered putting things away properly) and water the gone-over paperwhites that we enjoyed so much over christmas, as well as cutting off the spent flowers. I go out and start sweeping and getting rid of detritus from Christmas day, when we had the fire going. I chop down some blackened crispy rudbeckia stems that I had neglected to remove before Christmas, and as I lean over I get the sudden heady whiff of Sarcococca, unmistakeable, unsubtle, delicious, childish scent of DREAMS.
Friday: I've been surviving on a rather delicious but not-very-good-for-you diet of chocolate and crisps since Christmas and it's time to re-boot. I make a broccoli dhal (it's delicious...I found it a couple of years ago on a vegan app called 'Oh She Glows' and I make it at least monthly. Okay, I know this is not gardening at all, but I'm leading up to something okay? So I decide to sow a batch of micro-leaves, as my seeds have conveniently arrived, in the spirit of keeping mind, body and soul healthy for the journey to Spring. I plan to sow successionally once a fortnight so I can use these lovely leaves all over my food and feel all virtuous. Micro-leaves are much more punchy than their fully-grown equivalents, and when I'm trying to make good choices around food, it's flavour I crave.
Sowing micro-leaves
Find a wide shallow container...a seed tray is ideal but if you want the thing to be pretty then find a shallow terracotta pot. Fill it with multipurpose compost up to the top and water it thoroughly. Sprinkle your seeds over the surface of the compost, not neglecting the edges of the container. They can be pretty close together as you only want them as seedlings; it's fine for seeds to be touching.
I like to sow a mixture but feel free to do whatever you feel. If you've only got a narrow strip of windowsill you can use plastic guttering which is a genius way of freeing up space. Sprinkle a fine layer of more compost on top of the seeds and pat them down in a comforting sort of way, as if you were tucking a child into bed. Germination times vary but you should see action within a few days. Keep things damp (a sprayer is good for this), and remember that this is not just a one-hit wonder...put a reminder on your phone to sow another pot full of this in two weeks.
All the good things, always and as always, THANK YOU for your wonderful messages...you are the very best friends I have never met.
xx Laetitia