Sowing for Success

Start your growing year on the right footing with Monty's timely guide to sowing a garden full of colour and flavour

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"It all starts with a date: February 15th. This is when we start sowing our first spring seeds"

Gardening is shot through with all kinds of rituals. Some are ancient, connected to our forefathers and an instinctive yearning for the land. Others are neuroses that we harmlessly – though solemnly – enact. But they’re there in every garden and gardener. They are, I believe, a helpful part of connecting us to what we’re doing, how we do it and the rhythm and pace of land and seasons.

It was the writer Aldous Huxley who said that all religious precepts could be distilled to the two words ‘pay attention’. Without doubt, it’s the best advice for any gardener. Rituals are primarily aids to focusing attention but the danger is when we start believing that our personal ritual is ‘the one true way’ and start to scorn others for doing things differently. This is the route to horrible horticulture, and we’ll have none of that here.

Everything that follows is strictly subjective – but it works well for me. It starts with a date: February 15th. This is when we start sowing our first spring seeds. The idea is that by then all seeds have been ordered and delivered, put away in the right place and the potting shed prepared for action. All this can be broken down into dozens of sub-systems and rituals. As the seed arrives – and never has seed ordering been easier than in this day of the internet – it is laid out on a big table in the hall, in groups. And sub-divisions of groups.