Grow to eat: sow a pot aubergine or a crunchy gherkin now for summer crops
Mid-March is the time to gradually start sowing seeds indoors as days grow longer and temperatures finally start to rise. There’s no need to sow everything at once, you have plenty of time and you’ll need to allow space to pot on the growing seedlings inside.
Sowing one or two crops each weekend throughout spring creates a nice conveyor belt of plants that frees space for the next batch as they go out.
Vegetables that benefit from a head start include tomatoes and sweetcorn, which can be sown directly into their own 7-9cm pots. Celery, basil and parsley can also be sown now in trays and potted on when they have their second set of leaves (all from mr-fothergills.co.uk and chilternseeds.co.uk).
We only have a small flat and I grow all my allotment seedlings in our south-west facing bay window, which offers lots of sun, to prevent seedlings growing leggy reaching for light.
My top tip for good germination is a heated propagator like the Garland Super 7, suitable for any windowsill. Combined with fresh peat-free seed compost, this gentle heat has been my secret weapon. I sterilise compost to remove nasties by pouring boiling water over and allowing it to cool before sowing.
It’s fun to try something new and I’ve sown seeds of aubergine ‘Pot Black F1’, bred for growing in pots outdoors. I’m less keen on cucumbers, but for the first time I’m trying their cousin, gherkin ‘Cornichon de Paris’, for crunchy snacks.
A word of caution: in the past I’ve grown too many plants at once, creating huge amounts of work. Limiting plants per crop to around eight (depending on their level of cropping) works for me.
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