Choices, Choices

The hardest decision at this time of year is choosing what to grow in the spring. Every year there are long debates on site about whether this variety of potato is tastier/better/stores longer (delete as appropriate!), which type of tomatoes have the best fruit and so on and so forth. Usually, I have a clear idea of what I want to grow. But not so much this year. I seem to be lacking inspiration so I have had a look in various seed company websites.

Sutton’s is always worth a look and I found some interesting seeds which I thought would be worth a try. They had an offer on for a free seed tin if you bought four packs of seeds. I am an absolute sucker for boxes and tins for storing seeds, so of course I ordered several packs (Atlantic Giant Pumpkin, Scarlet Kale, Black Kale, Mountain Cranberry and Sungold Tomatoes). Interestingly, they were advertising their membership which was £10 for the year and included a 10% discount on all purchases as well as £20 free vouchers. Considering I usually spend somewhere in the region of £30-50 on seeds and plants each year, I thought this was definitely worth a go! With Covid restrictions probably coming in shortly, the chances of buying our seeds at the Federation Seed Day is unlikely.

After chatting with Cliff over a steaming mug of hot chocolate and discussing what we wanted to grow, I felt inspired to go online and work out what else to grow. Carrots, definitely not. Difficult and prone to carrot fly, they are notoriously fickle to grow. Potatoes, obviously. French beans as usual and tomatoes for the greenhouse. But what else?

Over a second hot chocolate and after watching the stove die down, I still hadn’t progressed much beyond potatoes, onions, garlic, French beans, tomatoes, courgettes, pumpkins, kale, squash and sunflowers. Watching the flames due down and watching the friendly robins flutter around the plot was wonderfully relaxing and once the stove was out, I decided to leave hard choices for another day.