Try Try Again

Persistence is right up there with sunlight and water when you’re making a list of what you’ll need when planning a garden. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again (and again and again). I do get frustrated but, as long as I have seeds, I keep on tryin’.

I’ve sowed quite a few flower seeds twice before, in April and August last year, with absolutely no success. I have no idea why. Some of them (for example, the pansies) grow pretty much all year round here, but autumn plantings certainly should grow. Today is either really late autumn or really early winter depending on whether you go by the government calendar or the sun. Whatever, I’m just going for it.

Today I filled some “seed trays” (old rubbish bin lids with holes drilled in the bottom) with compost, sand, lime and water crystals. I added seeds for Lobelia, Forget Me Not, Nigella, California Poppy and Heartsease Pansies. They get good sun and there’s not much more that I can do for them. Except protect them from the chickens (they’re on the bottom shelf of my plant stand) which I did with some spare chicken wire.

One of the Long Scarlet radishes from the April 22  batch finally was ready for harvest a couple of days ago. But only one. There are four or five others still hanging in there which is not a great return on the number of seeds I sowed. I sowed a bunch more of them between the peas today – a really dense planting – so maybe in late August I’ll be harvesting those.

I’m not giving up – yet…

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