Saving and sowing

Val flooks forward to sowing her self-saved seed

- Val Bourne

I’VE always loved sowing seeds and my earliest encounter was planting a packet of night-scented stocks that I’d acquired with my pocket money from the emporium that was once Woolworths. Oh, how I miss it! This was the place to acquire plants, before the advent of the garden centre, and on Saturday mornings it was chock-a-block.

Most children headed for the pick-and-mix sweets, but I used to rummage through all the cyclamen corms, looking for the odd one out. I’d invest in a trillium that would never grow. I’d rustle through the seed packets, admiring lupin breeder George Russell’s picture. He was wearing a white collarless grandad shirt that held a special fascination for me. I’m a clothes person: I must be the only one who came out of a Robert Plant concert enthusing about his black embroidered jacket.