There’s a clock ticking on the pots still devoid of green. Not my normal sometime impatience and need for propagator space, but a turning off of the heat. In a concession to fire safety and things like that, when we’re away for more than a few days I flick the switch, the plug is pulled, and there’s no more 20-degree heat motivating that first root to emerge.
The tomatillos have sensed the danger and thrown up seedlings in the last few days. There are two perfect sweet rocket shoots from some old saved seed found in the back of a cupboard, so maybe that’s a good enough showing, and much to my surprise a miniscule seedling in a pot marked ‘Mystery bouquet seeds’. The black seeds covered the sideboard beneath a birthday bunch of tropical architectural stems, and despite the odd husk there too among the dust I couldn’t identify the originator. They were too shiny and bead-like to resist, and into soil they went.
There’s a strange, bristly brown curl emerged from a pot of two old Eriobotrya seeds, the green at its base encouraging, but I’m disappointed in the emptiness of the Xanthoceras. They were far from fresh, however, so perhaps it was asking a bit too much, though there’s others in the pod I know I’ll sow at some point.
For the pots that remain brown and plantless, I will hope for early spring sunshine to heat the soil instead, and let nature take its course.
a year in the garden 