If you fancied creating your own plants from scratch but you've missed the spring window for this year for seed sowing, don't worry as July provides another opportunity to get going for some late summer / early autumn colour in the garden, autumn / winter vegetables. You can even a head start for an impressive garden display next spring.
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00:00Good morning from a very overcast day here in Ireland, today I'm going to be planting
00:20some seeds.
00:21It's early mid-July now at the moment and you can plant seeds now for next year.
00:28So here's what we'll be planting today and it's now the second week of July.
00:35First up we have these Canterbury Bells, I have two different suppliers here and they're
00:44both, well one is a double mixed, one is a single mixed cup and saucer mix with this
00:52kind of fringe around the bottom.
00:56I've never grown these before, I have also some wallflowers and these will all flower
01:03next year but we'll get them started now before the winter starts and then they'll die back
01:08but come back all the earlier then next year, hopefully.
01:12These are lupins, more russel mix as well, I have three different packets of hollyhock
01:21here so I'm going to do a wee comparison on them, pheasancy and columbine, agwellia,
01:30so six different types of seeds, get them all in trays now, see how they come on before
01:36the end of summer and as I say then they'll kind of lie dormant or die back and come back
01:43all the earlier in the spring and we'll get some early colour for next year, all being
01:50well.
01:52Some winter pansies and these will bring some colour whenever everything else has gone to
02:01seed.
02:02So first up I've prepared some trays, I'm just finishing this one and better move the
02:07seeds actually so we don't get them wet and I'm just going to water this before I put
02:12the seeds in.
02:14These are single cell trays and these will go for the bigger seeds and I have some other
02:22seed trays prepared there and I'm just using some multi-purpose compost with some feed
02:28on it here and this is meccan and it's, I've had great success with this with germinating
02:35seeds earlier in the year, so it's not a broken way to fix it, so here we go.
02:55Just take that tray out, put the ends to the side and move that up a bit, we're watering
03:03it, I don't want the compost to get wet in the bag, but there we go and doing this just
03:13means that you don't disturb the seeds then, just fill in any wee gaps too.
03:22You can just plop the seeds down and give them a light covering and you're not having
03:27to water them then and scatter them, so right, so that's it, it's a mucky business this.
03:39So first up I think we'll go for the chateaubriand bells and I have two different types here
03:44and I've got little labels too with me, so there's the first one down here and so two
03:58different sort of a cup and saucer mix, single chateaubriand bells and a double mix from
04:06Yorkshire seeds and from Janssen's, so pop these back on, I know these can grow quite
04:16tall so I'm going to open them from the bottom here, so I can keep the instructions on the
04:25intact on the top part and let's just have a look at the seeds here, well they're quite
04:37small so what I'll do is, I'll just show you them, they're very very small, I hope the
04:52camera's picking that up, I'll just check, very very small wee seeds, so I'll put these
05:00in a seed tray for now and then if they do come up I'll pot them on in the bigger pots.
05:11There's quite a lot of them too, so maybe one tray for this whole lot, don't know what
05:26the weather's like where you are but it's been pretty awful here so far this summer,
05:31it's been cold, the grass hasn't really grown, it's been wet, no sign of a heat wave or anything
05:40like that, so there, a light covering now and yep about half a centimeter of soil and the seedlings
05:59should appear according to the packet here within 14 to 28 days, so it could take up to a month,
06:05now so that's one done and I'll just leave these down here, so next up we have the columbine,
06:20so again just tap the seeds open from the bottom and these two are quite fine seeds,
06:34my hands are a bit mucky here so I'll not be able to, oh you might pick them up there,
06:43so what I'm going to do with these, I think we'll pop these in the individual seed trays,
06:55see if anything comes from them, maybe a couple in each and just press them down and cover them
07:03over, they're quite hard to see though, so there's not many in this packet but I have another packet
07:11here, so I'll put some more in over that, that's that one done,
07:42and then look for the others, here they are, I just got these delivered this week,
07:50never tried Yorkshire seeds before, so I thought I'd give them a go, there's a lot more in this one,
08:00yep, somewhere looking, so again just run them down,
08:15I think I'll just randomly scatter them, then what I might do is just give them a
08:33light cover in here as well, just to make sure that there's none stuck on the surface,
08:39and if these do tick then I'll have them for quite a few years,
08:53because they're perennial plants, so that's that done, while we're here we might as well get on
09:05with the next one, which is the, I think we'll go for the wallflowers, so this is Monarch Fairlady,
09:20and this is a hardy biennial, so plant them this year, get flowers next year,
09:31and that fact that they're hardy as well means that they should survive the low temperatures
09:39over the winter, there's quite a lot of seeds you can plant this time of year,
09:50there's a lot of seeds on that, I'll just show you these seeds as well,
09:55like a, a wheat colour, like a golden wheat,
10:01so I'm just gonna throw these over, I haven't read too much on the instructions for any of
10:14these but hopefully it'll be alright, god there's a lot in this, there's a few hundred seeds there,
10:21so, but you're better over sowing than under sowing because not everything survives, so
10:43there we go, that stem's on, they have a little,
10:47and just so I don't get confused, stick that in there, I'd better write a label now for this one,
11:06and that was Columbine,
11:24I always keep the seed packets too just to refer back to in case you
11:29you're wondering how they should be developing, and put these in here,
11:36and we have one more tray here, we'll have a look and see what we've left,
11:53we'll go for the pheasant's eye,
11:58I know nothing about these ones but I did look them up and it says that they're
12:05a wildflower that's
12:09endangered in Ireland,
12:24similar seeds to the last time, slightly bigger, so we put these in,
12:28and put them in here,
12:35so
12:57these are almond seeds, now it says you can plant them
13:00in August, September, October, but I'm doing a little bit early so we'll see how they get on,
13:05and should flower next year as well,
13:10again just a fine layer over the top, make sure they're covered and that's it,
13:23now you're supposed to sow these outdoors straight into the ground but
13:27I find you don't get as much success with a lot of the flowers, and there's other ones too that
13:31they say you can't really grow in trays or anything or indoors, but I haven't found that,
13:36like if nearly everything work okay and will transplant alright if you do it carefully, so
13:43right so that's all of them, keep the packet and write a label,
13:49again
14:08and there we go, and finally I'm just going to give them
14:11again a quick water, and I can't remember did I fall anything in this one,
14:16I don't think I did, so maybe I'll throw something in there too,
14:27maybe I did but sure,
14:36so
14:41put some hollyhock in here, these are country value, there's 40 seeds in this, so
14:46these are a double variety of hollyhock, oops should open them from the bottom again,
14:56looks like it's going to rain so I'm going to get this done before it does,
15:06the hollyhock seeds are like little dusks, I don't know if that's picking up okay, but
15:17right,
15:21so a little bit 20 cells here, so maybe two in each,
15:35so
15:44oh I've thrown that one,
16:06so
16:11a few spares here, so someone's getting three,
16:16maybe the edge ones look the best,
16:20right and again
16:36so finally with the label
16:59and I'm just going to put today's date on it as well 13th of the 7th
17:05of the 7th,
17:08I can't remember what year it was there, so right, I know I planted all these together anyway, so
17:16well that's it now, so I'll just move the compost out of the way a bit,
17:22just get these all watered,
17:23so there we have it, that's some seed planting in July, so if you missed the
17:37sort of February, March, April window for planting flowers for this year,
17:41or there's always loads you can do in the middle of summer for early next year or even next summer,
17:49so that's just a few of the things there that you can do,
17:56and it's always nice to see whenever
18:00the grim days of winter have passed, that things are starting to
18:03appear and you'll have a bit of colour early in the spring, that's grand, that's everything,
18:12some of the seeds will pop up when you water them, so it's worth just going over
18:18and pushing them down.