OwnGrown

Seeds don’t want to fight their way through heavy soil, lumps of earth, stones etc. The soil needs to be raked to a fine tilth and it also helps to use compost as the base for sowing and then covering the seeds with the same compost to whatever depth is required. In this picture pea seeds are shown on a bed of compost in the flat bottom trenches. These will be covered with compost which will give the seeds a good start. The same principle can be used for all seed sowing.

Digging is probably the worst job of the lot - starting late autumn and continuing through the winter to early spring as the ground is cleared. Rough dig the beds and leave the frosts to break the soil down. The problem this winter is that there are very few frosts so the soil does not break down and there is a lot of rain so the dug soil then compacts. After more work than usual, this picture shows the result at the end of March - a little has been planted / sown but most of the beds are empty and waiting for the warmer April weather before most of the sowing starts.