Work Smart Not Hard - Succession Sowing

Atrocious weather over the weekend. Still, it prompted me to re-think my planning and come up with ideas on how to do things more efficiently and productively in the next growing season. Work smart not hard, I say.

I've only recently realised how important timing really is in gardening. You can extend the season to a certain extent with cloches or greenhouses but if you miss your window to sow something, you sometimes end up missing out on it completely. Either that or growing it becomes more difficult, because the right conditions are not there: daylight hours, light, warmth from the sun...

I'm making a big effort to cut down on wasting seed and produce too, (because I've bought the same thing twice, say and I can't use it all), or because I've grown too much all at once and the glut of lettuces ends up in the compost.


So here is my new garden seed organiser. It set me back about twenty quid. You could make one yourself along the same lines, though. So far I like the principle of this one:

1. First you put your seeds into the different slots January, February and so on
THEN...

2. As soon as you have sown your batch of seeds you move the packets on to the next month.

That way, you stop wasting so many seeds and avoid the glut and famine scenario, if you get my gist.

The technical term for all this is: succession sowing. I'd been trying to do it for a while now, but sometimes got distracted, so I hope this nifty device is going to help. I've resolved to sow certain things (like lettuces) once a fortnight (on the 1st and the 15th. of every month) next year. I'll let you know how I get on with it. Of course life sometimes gets in the way...

I spent quite some time putting my dog-eared packets of seeds into the organiser. The process was useful though, as it made me look at the packets again, and reminded me of what I liked last year, what didn't work very well and what I didn't get round to sowing at all because I wasn't organised enough!