Seed selection

This year we are going to try everything we can think of. Well, almost everything. The asparagus will just have to wait. Next year we'll probably grow less different types of veg but more of what grew well. I fear our brassica won't do very well since our soil is slightly acidic but because of the state of the beds we couldn't lime the brassica beds in the autumn. Is there anything we can add now to improve the pH?

An Azorean friend with an amazing garden recommended vegetableseeds.net so that's where we went for our seed supplies. I found the reviews very helpful when choosing among the many tasty-sounding varieties, but I've also tended to go for the Scottish-sounding varieties: Leek Musselburgh, Tomato Ailsa Craig, Potato Dunluce.

In late February I started propagating in earnest. The first things I sowed were 'Speedy Salads' (tatsoi and red mustard frills) and tomatoes (Ailsa Craig and Golden Cherry). I probably sowed far too many tomatoes; in my impatience I sowed a second time and then all of the first seeds came up so I now have about 50 tomato plants! How many will we need to cover our annual tomato consumption?

The scene in the conservatory, March 2013

The tomato plants are taking over the greenhouse.

I probably lavished most care on my selection of squashes: courgettes (Nimba - ten out of 12 seeds came good), butternut squash (Gourd Metro F1), pumpkin (Little Jack) and a Hokkaido-type squash (Winter Uchiki Kuri - only one of eight made it, better luck next time). They are just the most attractive-looking seedlings. Again, no idea how many we'll need, but at least they store well, apart from the courgettes.

Courgettes, the coolest-looking seedlings

The courgettes a month later

Probably the most ambitious seed I've selected is globe artichoke. I was relieved to discover a plant in nearby Castle Kennedy Gardens so there is hope. So far they are doing all right in the greenhouse, but how will they cope outside?

Globe artichokes in Scotland? Fingers crossed.

The conservatory is emptying out somewhat, but it is a bit difficult to know when to plant out since most of the gardening books and instructions on seed packets are based on southern England. I've added a couple of weeks, but I wish the seed instructions would give the minimum temperature and the preferred temperature range of the plant.

The scene in the conservatory, late April 2014

The new patch

We moved to the Scottish countryside last October, after two years at sea and countless years in the city. Our traditional Galloway cottage came with 1.3 acres, including a sizeable vegetable garden (8 x 25 metres). Alas, the veg plot looked like this:

Veg garden habitat, October 2013

More of a habitat really, with metre-high nettles, brambles and bracken. Putting my 70-something parents to good use, we managed to roughly clear the area in a week and were pleased to discover ten raised beds and a nice garden bench hiding underneath. It felt a bit like an archaeological dig.

The first hard graft, November 2013

Then we had to wait nearly four weeks until Boxing Day for a non-windy day to cover everything with thick black plastic. Ideally, we would have liked to leave the plastic down for six months, but with us raring to go planting this spring we had to settle for three months. In the meantime we filled in two ornamental ponds with rubble, soil and compost to make a herb and a salad pond.

The salad pond had to be peacock- and cat-proofed immediately.

We lifted the plastic cover in late March and to our surprise found some very jaundiced daffodils growing in two of the beds. These got a week's worth of chlorophyll before we transplanted them all over our garden. They are now doing very well in their new sites, except those that have been dug up and trampled on by the chickens.

The Scottish daffs are tough. The veg bed after the plastic came off, March 2014

The past two weeks have been spent digging and pulling up enormous dock, nettle and bracken roots. There is nothing for it but hard graft. Jim is a stalwart digger, but even he needed a day off after a fortnight's solid effort. As each bed is readied we've been planting it up. So far we have populated seven of the ten beds: beetroot, pak choi and lettuce; calabrese and kale; red cabbage, white cabbage and Brussels sprouts; carrots and onions; parsnips and Swiss chard; peas and broad beans; cress, rocket, little gems and radish.

The partially planted veg beds, April 2014

We are both pretty much novice gardeners. My only gardening experience before was harvesting fruit and veg in my gran's garden as a child and having a window box of kitchen herbs. As a city girl, I've never had a garden before. And while Jim grew up having a garden, his expertise was mainly limited to lawn-mowing. But, armed with the Garden Expert reference books and a plentiful supply of useful youtube videos we are going to give this our best shot. Any advice is welcome as we take our first steps to figure out what works and what doesn't. In the worst-case scenario, we can always become nettle farmers!