Let's Germinate!

Prepare the soil to give seeds a great start, says Bob

- Bob Flowerdew

AS the days lengthen we want to start sowing outdoors. Books and seed packets tell us we should be sowing broad beans, wrinkled peas, parsnips, hardy annual flowers and so on. And this is true, although really only for sheltered sites and warm, dry soils.

You see, many of our earliest sowings fail or do poorly simply because the soil has to be warm enough to germinate seeds before they rot. Even if seed germinates it will still do less well if the weather turns colder and wetter again.