Jan 2024

What we are sowing in January

Every year around the start of January we begin to get the itch. We always get that feeling that we are late to the party and that we should have already sown some seeds and start off the new growing season early on. The reality is we are still early in fact for many seeds we are still too early.

When it comes to seed sowing at this time of year we like to start something off to help us feel like the growing season has started and we have select seeds we know we can start off at home then safely move out into the greenhouse once successfully germinated.

One thing we have had some good success with each year is lettuce seeds. They are really easy to grow, germinate at a fairly low temperate around about 15 degrees C and are hardier than you might think meaning we can often plant them out for growing on later in Feb (we just have to keep a watch out for pesky slugs).

We like to sow a mix of lettuce often in a tray with a plan to prick and thin out in a few weeks time before planting out in to a raised bed. We do cover them with a bit of a mesh netting just in case we get some snow, but otherwise they are minimal maintenance and give us a nice early crop of salad leaves.

The next seed we sow is a batch of chilli seeds. We both enjoy our chilli's and so January is when we sow them, but we do need to use a heated propagator to ensure germination. A heated propagator with some grow lights works a treat and allows us to grow some hot but tasty varieties Ohnivec and long thin spaghetti chilli are some good performers (see our long thin spaghetti below). Some people might see January as being too early for chilli's, but we tend to grow varieties that need a longer growing season, so start them off quite early on. This year we are trying a new one for us call Chiltepin which are a small pea sized chilli and fairly hot one at around 50,000 to 100,000 SHU on the Schoville Heat Scale, so should be interesting.

Broad beans are another seed we start off in January. We like to grow them in some deep root trainers so that we can see a strong root system developing before hardening them off in our unheated greenhouse and then planting them out. Our allotment site is quite exposed so we do cover them as they establish to stop them getting wind swept and also to protect them from the birds (pigeons and even blackbirds) that will quickly decimate the plants if unprotected.