2025-03-22 Start of the main sowing

Many vegetable seeds can be sown from March onwards, so today I decided to sow a few of the earlier ones.

Tomatoes are always a good crop. This year we are trying a few F1 hybrids. You only get a few seeds in each pack, so I decided to sow them directly into 3-inch pots. The varieties are:

• Artisan Blush Tiger and Artisan Pink Tiger, both cherry plum tomatoes. Only 5 seeds in each pack!
• Roma F1, a plum tomato. A generous 6 seeds in that pack :)
• Roma VF, a different variety of Roma, you get a lot of seeds for the same price as the F1, so it will be interesting to see the difference.
• Piccolo Dittero Ibrido F1, although this is an F1 hybrid you get a few more than 5 seeds with this variety. It is a cherry variety, with grape-shaped fruits.

We mainly grow cherry tomatoes for salad, as they produce a good crop with a nice flavour. We grow plum tomatoes mainly for cooking. There is nothing better than a pasta sauce made with fresh tomatoes, with a few fresh herbs and garlic.

I've also sown some beetroots. Boltardy, which is a good variety creating decent-sized roots. And Bona, which produces smaller roots but with an incredibly deep colour. I just did one tray with about 18 of each. I will sow some more seeds straight in the raised beds a bit later in the year.

I've also sown some herbs. Curled Parsley and Genovese Basil straight into troughs, and also some French Summer Thyme and Greek Oregano into 6-inch pots. I've never grown thyme or oregano from seed before. The seeds are very, very small. Will be interesting to see how it goes.

The rhubarb I planted last year has resurfaced and looks like it might do well. It has created the little bud just above the soil like rhubarb does before it bursts into leaf. At least, 3 of the 4 plants have done that, The fourth one is nowhere to be seen yet.

I've also managed to finish the first dig of the whole bed. Just turning it over really, it is still too wet to break up properly. The ton of manure I spread last autumn, which seemed like a lot at the time, really isn't much now I have dug it in. Still, I am sure it will do some good.

The potatoes I put in trays for chitting a few weeks ago all have nice strong shoots starting to form. It is still a bit too wet to plant them out.