Friday, March 18, 2011

Rainy days and Mondays.


There's a rain a coming so I'm reliably informed. Actually it even came last night. Ten mls of the stuff. So while I'm waiting for things to dry out a bit in the veggie garden I'm in here writing this.

The BoM has us down for, 'A few showers, late storm. Rain developing, possibly heavy at times. Light to moderate E to NE winds.' And when I get a weather report like that it can mean only one thing. It's seed planting time. I like to veggie seed when the prospect of rain is in the air because I think it replicates the natural germination process of cool days, warm and moist soil and there by increasing the chances of success. I also think it's a good time for adding compost, blood and bone and mulches for the same reason.

Seeds to be planted will include Lettuce (can never have too many lettuce), beetroot, beans, potatoes, peas, carrots, leeks for starters so if I'm going to get any of this done I'd better get cracking.




Weeds? What weeds? Who's got time to weed?

2 comments:

Jason Dingley said...

After a heavy rain do you find the seeds stay where you put them. I would fear them being washed into clumps. But my garden is on a slight slope. So do you mainly put seeds straight in the ground?

My Veggie Garden said...

Hi Jason, my soil here is a fairly porous volcanic red soil so it takes pretty heavy rain to get any wash happening but in a heaver soil I can see that being an issue. I direct sow a lot of the quicker to germinate seeds mainly to avoid transplant stress and for convenience. I like to plant seed when it is overcast with light rain, mainly to avoid the soil drying out and killing the germinating seed but we don't always get what we want and sometimes I'm running around madly with a watering can keeping everything moist.
If you are worried about your seeds being washes into clumps you could try mounding your seed rows with some well drained composted soil and planting into that.
Hope this helps
Cheers
Stewart