Gardening in Orkney: Spring

How not to label your peppers (and other lessons)

Last season ended, as they so often do, full of good intention. The plan was to clear most of the eight raised beds we have in Doug (Polycrub), mulch a few and sow green manure in others.

The reality. Nothing. I ignored it, with intent.

Even in the shortest days of winter, I visited Doug at least four times a week, so I was well aware of what was, or more accurately, wasn’t going on. Canes sticking up in beds with string keeping them tangled together, half empty tubs and pots strewn all over the place, nasturtium steadily taking control of one corner and the infamous kale triffids.

Neglected

Not quite the haven I imagined.

I slowly started to tidy things up in January. First making space for my cold water dipping pod and then pulling out the last of the long forgotten crops, namely a failed grow again celery and a chard that had gone into retirement.

But I had time. The days while short dragged on, when would winter ever end? Until one morning I woke up and there it was, a hint of spring. The beds still looked like a time forgotten post-apocalyptic scene, my first allotment book, is looking a lot more vintage than it should (read mouldy) and not a seed had been sown.

It was time.

I rummaged through long abandoned pots and trays and found two passable propagating trays which I filled with compost, watered and then let rest before topping up with a other layer of compost.

Next it was time to open the seed tin and plan. Thanks to my trusty spreadsheet of dreams (only me who dreams about spreadsheets?), it was a pretty quick process to find all the seeds that were good for March sowing and decide where my priorities lay.

One, of many, key takeaways from my Introduction to Permaculture course is that you don’t need to grow more than you can eat. Of course, having a glut for freezing, pickling, jamming etc., is fabulous, but until we have a wider network and more areas to grow in, keeping it small to fulfil our needs feels like a good place to start.

The spreadsheet of dreams

You may remember, if you’ve been with me for a while, that at the back end of last year I asked ChatGPT to help in organise my chaotic seed collection. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted but in the end, together, we created a table with the seed name, sow from and until, type, indoor/outdoor, suggested companion planting and twelve further columns, one for each month.

The great thing about the bonus twelve columns, is that I can filter for month. So if I go to the March column and filter for “Y”, it brings up all the seeds that can be sown in March. Clever right?

And if that sounds handy, here’s the prompt I used:

Hello Chat. I aways say hello, it’s important to be polite.

I have a list of seeds with sowing information and I’d like help creating a detailed planting guide. For each seed, I’ll provide:

• Seed Name

• Sow From Month

• Sow Until Month

• Whether it’s sown indoors, outdoors, or both.

Please create a table with the following columns:

1. Seed Name

2. Sow From

3. Sow Until

4. Indoor/Outdoor

5. Type of plant (use your own knowledge)

6. Companion Plants (based on common guidance)

7. One column for each month (January–December) with a “Y” for months where sowing is recommended

I’ll read the seeds out in this format: Seed Name – Sow From – Sow Until – Indoor/Outdoor

Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll get going.

After plugging in the prompt and letting that settle, I used the ‘dictation tool’ and read out the details from the seed packets and left Chat to do the rest. I stopped every 20 packets or so to let it catch up and in the end it was able to create a downloadable CSV file for me. You can also upload the template spreadsheet to give it more guidance, which you can grab here: Template Spreadsheet of Dreams

Granted the information about type and companion planting isn’t brilliant and apart from a couple of other errors I now have a list of 84 seeds. It also helped me check how many duplicates seed packets I have. How many packets of rocket seeds does anyone need? Let me tell you it is not four. One is ample, unless you are providing everyone in the village with their own rocket plant.

And that’s how I came to be sowing 3 different types of tomato, aubergine, 3 different peppers, cucumber, sunflower, kale, peas, sweet peas, calendula, aster and a range of salads. I won’t pretend that waiting for the pepper to germinate was any fun, especially as one has completely ghosted me. The only problem is, I can’t be sure if it’s the yellow chilli or the Padron as labelling is not really my thing. Time will tell.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been pricking out and potting on and soon they’ll be ready for beds. Which has worked out very well as there’s nothing like having 40 odd seedlings that need a home get you to pull your finger out.

Now as write this on Easter Sunday afternoon, waiting for the lamb to roast (last year’s from a local farm), five out of eight beds are done. In fact, I might just have time to finish off two more. I’ll be leaving the garden tiger moth nursery for another couple of weeks as I just can’t bring myself to disrupt them as they decimate the last of the kale and any hopes of my lavender doing well this year. I might just start sowing some April seeds too…

Beds done ✅

How can you begrudge them a little lavender?