Early spring seed sowing

Well, thank goodness for large picture windows facing south. I have a forest of seedlings all pushing out of their little pots.

I never usually sow this early. But I am keen for padron peppers which take forever to grow. And I was also dead keen for something to gaze at while trapped indoors. And nothing beats the speed of a mange tout pea or a broad bean to give you a thrill.

Pandemic winters and early springs are very, very long.

And this table is the perfect height. I can fuss and spritz and rotate the little plants to my utter delight each morning and evening.

In this lower light, you have to rotate like mad so the baby seedlings don’t list to one side.

Well, I am able to spritz with water until every single one of my little water spray thingies died. I have been through the cupboards and the potting shed searching for a functioning nozzle. But to no avail.

And speaking of the potting shed….

Houston, we have a problem.

(Fear not, I’ve cleaned up the shed and done a big tidy since This Incident.)

Moi? Flinging trays of seedlings off the bench tops? Surely not.

Well I don’t see any other candidates and The Creature is not pleased that the potting shed has become a multi function space. A Salle Polyvalente.

In her (very small) brain she equates human with potting shed with love, affection, attention and food. Soft furnishings to sleep. Chatter all directed at her.

If she is having an indoor day she will move into certain locations, chasing the best of the sun. And I have learned to my cost that an inadvertently placed try – in her space – has consequences.

Suddenly her space is not her own. There are objects in her way. That human is turning her back on her and doing strange things with noisy rustling bags, scoops and chopsticks, labels, pencils, small pots, watering cans.

She doesn’t even turn round when I bleat!

So. The poor cat is learning that she is no longer the centre of the human’s world.

It is a shared space and I have to place all my seedlings with great care. There has to be a passage along the edge of all the bench tops.

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And the precious plants – the padron peppers, the exotic capsiscums, the dill, are at the back. And sacrificial salad seedlings can be in her way should she choose to throw a tanty.

With luck these beauties will be out and in the potager in a month. A race against cantankerous cat and iffy weather and a gardener’s desire to get things growing out in the garden. Again.