Which spring flowers and autumn vegetables to sow in September
In comparison with other regions, our winters in Ireland and across the water in Scotland, England and Wales are considered relatively mild which means there are a lot of hardy flowering plants and some quick growing vegetables you can start now and get growing for a late autumn harvest and early spring colour next year.
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00:00Good morning, today I'm just going to be sowing some seeds. It's September and there's certain
00:18seeds you can sow in overwinter outdoors, certain ones you can't. The frost will make
00:25these die back but the roots will be alive underneath. Today I'm going to be sowing some
00:30seeds from 2012. These were my father's seeds. My father died 10 years ago and a few years
00:40after he died we found all these seeds in a box. So I'm going to try and see if any
00:46of them will come up. The expiry date was, not that one, 2012 on all of them. So these
00:56were seeds he never got to plant and I'm hoping they maybe, see if any of them come up. It's
01:02a slim chance because they're so old but we have, what we have here is some radishes,
01:08two different types of radishes, some beetroot and some spring onion. My father was a keen
01:14gardener himself and liked trying things, vegetables especially. He had an allotment
01:22too at one point. So what I've done here is I've pre-soaked some trays that are actually
01:31soaking at the moment. These are individual cells and then I have just normal trays as
01:37well for seeds. This is just good quality, very crumbly compost. I'm just going to press
01:50them down here. What I'm going to do is just use the bottom of a pen to make a wee hole
01:56in each one. I'll just take the seeds down here and explain what I'm sowing where in
02:09a moment. So some of these seeds are vegetables, some are flowers and they're all kind of hardy
02:20enough ones that should, in theory anyway, survive the cold. There's a hard butt, you
02:27don't want that in your seed compost. I'll leave that to one side and put it in the garden.
02:36Hard butts can stop the delicate young root from advancing downwards.
02:49So this compost is already pretty moist, it's been sitting in the water for the past 10 minutes.
02:57Somebody's chopping wood next door if you hear a bit of banging.
03:00Let's see, so under this one we'll put beetroot.
03:06Says expiry December 2012, so that's 12 years ago now. So we'll see anyway
03:14how they get on. And that's the seeds, they're quite big seeds,
03:20and there's a lot of them. So I'll maybe put two in each
03:23in each cell. What I'll do with the pen now, put one in each corner as well.
03:46Oh, there's two in that hole. I may have to treble these up anyway because there's so many of them.
04:07I still have probably most of the packet here, but I'm going to just put them back in and see
04:12if anything comes of these ones to start with. That should be a good indicator whether these
04:17seeds or any of these seeds are still viable. And then I'm just going to, now that they're
04:23in the hole, close over the holes, just with my finger. And I'll spray these in just to give them
04:31a final watering in so that they're in good contact with the soil. So now we're entering
04:39more familiar territory, which is flowers. And one herb I think I'm going to plant today as well,
04:47which is garlic chives. Now these are newer seeds. Planted a few of these very early in the year,
04:55but they didn't do too well, so I'm going to try them again. For
05:01this one I'm going to use, I don't have very many trays left, so I'm going to use
05:10the same tray for maybe three or four different things. I don't want to be planting too many
05:15seeds either, because I've nowhere to put them. And they survive frost and everything outside.
05:21The other one, the other ones I'm growing are some Honesty, some Lunaria. I have some of these
05:29that I planted earlier in the year that are biennial, so they'll flower next year.
05:33Then you get those big silvery, moon-like seed pods. Great for cut dried flowers, or even just
05:41some drama in the autumn in the garden. But these will all be for next year anyway. Then on top of
05:48that we have some Dwarf Cornflowers. Had really good success with normal Cornflowers this year,
05:55so I'm going to try the Dwarf variety. Sweet William, another one. I've already planted
06:01half this packet earlier in the year, and they're growing away in the ground. They will flower
06:05early in the spring, but I thought if I plant more now, they will, it'll keep the flowering
06:12season going. When the other ones die off, these will be coming into bloom hopefully.
06:16See if they come up. And then we also have the Love in a Mist. I didn't plant this specifically
06:26this year, but I did plant some dried flower, just a mix of dry flower seeds. The ones that you use
06:32for cutting and arrangements. And amongst them, the ones that came up were Nigella, Love in a Mist.
06:40In front of me to you, I didn't mention. This is some Baby's Breath seeds that I collected from
06:47the ones I grew from seeds earlier in the year. And it said somewhere you can grow these too
06:52in September, so I'll try them anyway. I'm not sure if they're cold frost or cold hardy, frost
06:59hardy, but we'll try and get them on the ground anyway, like before winter sets in proper.
07:07In terms of what I'm going to do here, is just going to make wee drills
07:11in the soil, just with a pen, and then just fold them over. So
07:16there's one, two, three, four. Just lift that up so you can see what I'm doing there.
07:29And these aren't very deep, but
07:34it just makes it easier in the end when you're putting the labels in, you know what's what.
07:39I'm not, as I said, I'm not sowing all these seeds, just some of each.
07:43First up, I think we'll try and keep all the ones that are gonna need to stay inside first, to germinate.
07:57So these are the Sweet William.
08:00The Sweet William.
08:09I feel a bit sully now.
08:13This one was the Dwarf.
08:23Cornflowers.
08:26I've got a brain freeze there.
08:31I have an honesty one already written out, so I can stick that in there.
08:37The one we just did was Fast Glove. Do I have one for this? I don't.
08:49I'll have to see if I can find some more labels here.
09:01This is Strawberries and Sage. So I've just reused these many times,
09:18like these are ones that are already written on, so Fast Glove.
09:21That's in there.
09:32So next up, we'll get the Nigella on.
09:47And these little multi-packs too are great, because you don't get a massive amount of
09:55seeds, but you get a good deal, and they seem to be as good as any of the expensive seeds that you buy.
10:05So I'm not sure, I might actually put some of these back, because there's probably around
10:1240 seeds in there, and I might plant some in the spring as well.
10:18Yep, that's Grand.
10:22These are beautiful flowers, and the seed heads are incredible on them too, so a great one for
10:32dried flower displays or bouquets.
10:37And I will show you some of the seed heads in a wee while. I'll take you around and show you
10:41how some of these things are looking at the moment, for the ones I have.
10:47Next up,
10:54I want to keep, ah, that's what I wanted to do. So I'm going to keep the Icelandic
11:02poppies and the Oriental poppies. I'll try and put them in their own tray I think, because they are
11:07quite, they have quite a different growing habit, and they need to be outside really.
11:16So we have the garlic chives here, and there's,
11:20I've also some more hollyhock too that I'm going to be planting today, but I'll do them,
11:24they're quite big seeds, so they will need their own.
11:31So we'll get the garlic chives in now.
11:33Right,
11:36I haven't planted none of these have I? God knows.
11:54That's the one.
11:57I wasn't, I didn't think there would be so many things that you can plant at this time of year.
12:03But apparently so. I'll just use up the rest of those too.
12:10There seems to be quite a bit. Hopefully now it all works.
12:15Now lastly in this one, I'm going to plant
12:20some more fast cloves in there. Maybe keep them, there's a couple more there.
12:27Lastly I've been collecting seeds, and I'll do a video on collecting seeds. I could
12:31as more flowers die off. But these are baby's breath, and these were just ones I grew from
12:40seed earlier in the year. I'm putting the seed tusks and everything in here, because they're
12:46so tiny, the seeds, you can't really separate them. I've gone through and sort of squeezed them out.
12:52And there's a million more as well, but these also make really good dry flowers as well.
12:59Apparently, so maybe something we'll look at.
13:08Put the rest in here.
13:10All right, so that's everything, and then I just need to close these over now.
13:26I must get some more leaves, because I've seen they've run out, and
13:38I know there's other ones out in the garden, too, that are in pots that I no longer need them for.
13:45I think after you get used to certain leaves, too, you can, certain distinctive leaves,
13:50you can take them out, too, and reuse them, the likes of lupine and stuff like that.
13:58That's grand, I mean, you just drill over these.
14:01Following the ditch.
14:14So, as you can see here, the greenhouse is full of leaves.
14:18I'm going to go ahead and put a few more out there.
14:20So, as you can see here, the greenhouse has already fallen up again.
14:35I'm afraid I got my money's worth out of this £30 greenhouse this year, anyway.
14:40A plastic job, and on here, that's the lavender I grew from seed earlier in the year,
14:47and then Chinese lanterns, some pheasants, native Irish wildflower that's endangered,
14:56more Chinese lanterns, and then this one is one of the three types of Canterbury bells.
15:04These will need transplanted pretty soon, looking very healthy there. Here is more of them, and
15:10a couple of winter pansies, too. More of the red pheasants, eh? In the back is some younger
15:19Canterbury bells, and then here we have a few hollyhock. Something's been at this, these two,
15:26so they're particularly vulnerable, they slogs and snails when they're young.
15:33And then here we have
15:42quite a lot of these actually, like there's ones down here I've given away a lot to,
15:47and these are Columbine, or Aquilegia, or Granny's Bonnet, sort of old
15:54perennial, old paddy's favourite, like you don't see that often anymore, and there's more of them
16:00again down there. Kind of shamrock-like leaf, really pretty, and more hollyhock, lupins, and
16:12more, there's the winter pansies there, they've gotten a bit dry there, I'll have to water them,
16:17and they look ready to transplant on as well. More Columbine, and in there we have some new
16:24lavender growing as well. So that's everything that's in here, there's not much room for
16:29anything else, so I wasn't sure where I'm going to put these outdoor ones for now, because even
16:34the buns are getting covered. This is more Canterbury Bells, up here we have some of the
16:44rosemary that I grew from seed, some lettuce, more lettuce inside, and we have more rosemary, I need
16:53to give half this stuff away, because I've nowhere to put it. More Canterbury Bells, it's a mixture
16:59of leftovers, seedlings, down here we have wallflowers, which will flower next year,
17:05they've been there about a month and a half old now, more lupins, more hollyhock,
17:12more Canterbury Bells, and here's some of the
17:20the Swiss chard, and you can see the different coloured stems, this is a red one, this is a
17:25yellowish one, some of that's bolting now, I'm going to seed, but this is really nice in a salad,
17:33or you can cook it as well, like spinach, but I was going to show you, I'm getting carried away here.
17:38This is the Anastie that we just planted, a bit of moss trying to find a home in there, but as you
17:46can see the big heart-shaped leaf, it looks a bit battered here at the moment, but I'm going to get
17:52that in the ground, because there's seven or eight of them in here, and they needed, they needed far
17:56more room, they should have been on ages ago, but I want to wait till the flowers die back, so I can start
18:00pulling the angles out, and then work the ground a bit, add a bit more compost, and then start,
18:06and then the other things grew this year, that just, that we've just started sowing are,
18:14these are normal size cornflowers, and we've just planted some miniature cornflower seeds,
18:21and here we have the hollyhock, that I'm going to be planting in a minute,
18:26you can see the size of these flowers,
18:29and there's a one over here, that's about seven foot, if you see it there, most of this might be,
18:34there's a nice white one, and a darker pink one as well, these are singles, the double ones are
18:40more rosette like, a few more here growing, so we'll get more of them in the ground,
18:47and hopefully by the time winter comes, or even in pots maybe,
18:58things in pots seem to survive much better, and nothing's in need any of them, when you put the
19:04copper foil on it, and then the last thing I wanted to show you here was, well the last two things
19:10actually, is first up, this is loving a must, and these are the seed heads, and do we have any
19:19still flowering, yeah here's one, they're all dying away now at the moment, here's one we
19:27loving the most here, this light blue, and amongst the one everlasting, and then we have these
19:33amazing seed heads, that you can use for dried flowers,
19:39with these long stems, and these ferny kind of leaves, very unusual looking plant, but
19:43grows very well here, I hear some other ones growing as well,
19:52and
19:58the last thing I wanted to show you was the Sweet William that I planted earlier in the year,
20:03and these are biennials obviously, that will come up
20:10in the spring, with a mass of flowers, these are Araucalymix, which is the sort of bi-coloured ones,
20:18let's see what else there is here,
20:23so there's a mass of them, but they're all in, I'm going to dig them out I think,
20:26and put them in the pots, because I do want to work the soil over, but there's also a few
20:33we're all kind of hidden here at the moment, but there's a few more honestly on the ground here as
20:37well, so I may try and work around them, but that is everything there for that, well it's been a
20:45week, and I just wanted to show you that some of the old seeds, my father's seeds have grown,
20:51and these are the radishes, the French breakfast radishes,
20:56they're the first to come up, maybe the only ones that come up, but I'm very chuffed with that,
21:01and I just want to show you as well, these are the baby's breath, that
21:09had been grown from seed earlier in the year, and now they're going to seed, so I took some of the
21:15seed heads, squeezed out the seeds, planted them, and after a week they are all germinating,
21:24all germinating, there are probably a few hundred on here, not what I expected at all,
21:30but just shows you how fresh seeds, compared to the others which have, that they germinate,
21:36and there's four different varieties on here of seeds, but these are the only fresh ones I planted,
21:42and they've all come up as well.