There’s so much going on in the garden right now as Spring creeps up on us. Buds swelling on trees, little shoots appearing in the garden beds, early flowers risking the frosts and the birds singing like crazy!
Time to start sewing summer seedlings if you have a greenhouse, or sunny window sill. I bought a heat mat last year, and it worked a treat to get those seeds going that need warm soil - tomatoes, pumpkins, capsicums and courgettes. I’m going to grow mainly cherry tomatoes this year, including some exciting ‘Fahrenheit Blues’ that someone bought to our seed swap!
If you’re keen to get on the cherry tomato train, we will have a mixed cherry tomato pack on the Seed board after our September working bee. This mix includes baby Romas, tiny grape-size yellow and red tomatoes, Tommy Toes, Lemon Drop, Black Cherry and small, storage tomatoes. ( If you pull up the whole plant in Autumn and hang it upside down in a dry shed you can be eating storage tomatoes all Winter. ) Many thanks to the folks who donated tomato seeds to the Seed Library this year!
Next working bee 1st September
Our next working bee is on 1st Sept, the first Thursday of the month. 11am at the library. Come along and join us to pack seeds. It’s a friendly group, and everyone is welcome. We had a great session earlier this month and made a start on packing the summer seeds. The library made us very welcome inside rather than in the foyer - nice and toasty on a cold Winter’s day!
To all of you who have made suggestions for seeds on the sign out form, we have taken note: we will have flowers, corn and chillies on the board, as per requests, after the September working bee!
Seed Swap ‘22
Thank you to everyone who came along and joined in with our Seed Swap. It was such fun! We had lots of interesting seed contributions, and lovely chats with people about growing things in this area. Growing Abundance’s popular ‘Grow What When’ calendar was for sale at the event, and we gave away lots of seed ready for a bumper summer of veg!
In the words of former Seed Library Co-ordinator Dayna: ‘Congratulations to everyone for our very successful and joyous inaugural Seed Swap! There were so many people genuinely excited, who may or mayn’t have previously known about the Seed Library, there engaging and looking forward to growing the seeds they took away.’
Seed Library volunteers and supporters grinning after the Seed Swap!