All the Small Things

Brassica seedlings - a rather more planned sowing...

Yesterday I woke up to the sound of rustling and a light staccato hissing, as of rain or small beads falling, punctuated by the occasional satisfied ‘ga!’ of a toddler employed in a really good game. Quiet games being cause for some concern, I opened my eyes to find that my youngest had helped himself to a document wallet that I had been slinging packets of seeds into as a holding bay during the gardening mayhem of the last six months.

He had been happily pouring out the open ones and ripping up the closed ones and was sat in a pile of clean laundry with seeds of all sizes sprinkled gaily around. Clearly I have only myself to blame for leaving things within reach (although ‘out of reach’ seems to be a smaller place every day that passes) but this does leave me with the problem of what to do with a mixed selection of endive, wild rocket, beetroot, coriander, lettuce ‘freckles’ and something that may or may not be kale.

Doubtless a graduated sieve would help, but life is too short to mess around with such things. My plan is to wait a little while until the days are brighter then sow the mixture in trays of compost in the heated propagator. When they come up I can a) harvest them as microleaves or b) prick them out and grow them on, depending on what the mixture turns out to be and whether they all come up at the same time (unlikely). With any luck I will be able to salvage at least some seedlings. Cutting things off in their prime seems to be a bit wrong, and that is something for which my son has cause to be grateful.

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