My Kitchen Garden is Breaking ALL the Rules!!
My Kitchen Garden is breaking all the rules!!
My kitchen garden is a hive of secret activity, it is doing a great job of re-seeding itself!!
I have broccoli Raab, rocket, arugula, Belgian white carrots, purple dragon carrots and goodness knows what else popping up all over the place.
In some instances it has even done a good job of stock rotation and re-seeded it’s self into another location in the kitchen garden!!
I am delighted, this is the great advantage of growing heirlooms, their seed is viable and it hadn’t occured to me that it would self seed so easily….silly me!!
But it has given me an idea one which I had thought of a while ago, and this idea will naturally expand on this self seeding course.
I am broadcasting all my other seeds on to the beds with some wild abandon. I mix all the seeds in a big container with beneficial insect flowers like hyssop sacred basil lupins violas etc and scatter them across the soil.
I have then covered them with some dry soil and hey presto let Mother Nature do her thing. I do admit to lending a helping hand in the actual selection of the seeds for each bed.
I have not mixed too many Brassicas or other cultivars that cross-pollinate easily. I have germinated tomatoes, beans aubergines and capsicum in pots but I like the idea of diverse bio diversity.
The first wave of seeds I germinated in pots now it’s time to sow direct and working on the principle that Mother nature designed seeds to know when conditions for growing are right.
The other area I am interested in, is natural pest control, perhaps the more haphazard plantings are the more the pests will be confused, an interesting concept, definately worth waiting to see.
I mean in the wild, vegetables grow one here and one there, there are no neat rows or any semblemce of order, I like that.
I thought I’d explore this aspect more in the future by letting my kitchen garden self seed all by it’s self… Just imagine the wonderful things I could do with the extra time…right:)
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Happy New Year…We enjoy your tips and interesting site.
Thank you SOOOOO much for the kind words. Happy New year to you also.:)
Thanks a lot and I’ll subscribe to the blog so I can keep reading.
Thank you for the kind words. Suzi
Hi, I like the sound of this
but I’m puzzled (if I understood right) why you thought the tomatoes would need to be germinated separately, we have had some heirloom (gifted from a neighbour) tomatoes whose seeds survive our poor compost heap, and sprout from the compost year after year – the only problem is we get too many
Hi Tim, Thank you for the comment:) The only thing I have with my tomatoes is they are EVERYWHERE!!! Compost heap, every vegetable bed and more!! NOT that I am complaining in the purest sense of the word, but they do emit a root hormone which prevents other seeds germinating around them, and my problem has been in 2 beds the tomatoes I didn’t broadcast have reseeded and stopped other seeds germinating. My tomato vines grow SO big they take over the entire kitchen garden, paths, beds and fences!!! This is why I need to germinate them individually so I can grow them in a space where I want them so they can freely dominate!!