It is time to sort seed. To take out packets from the bags and boxes, drawers and pockets you might keep them in and check their viability. I am as bad as anyone at hoarding seed long past its sow-by time, but maybe this year I will learn to change.
My next seed job, though, is to sort through the dishes and paper bags of saved seed that line our living-room shelves (there is almost the same again for wild flowers at the Danish summerhouse). I will admit to an obsession.
At home there are dishes of tagetes Ildkongen, Basque tear peas, a large sunflower head, deep-red Hopi Painted Mountain corn, coriander, calendula and cosmos sulphureus – last summer’s happy orange discovery. All thrumming, waiting to be patiently sifted, sorted and saved. A late-winter job, satisfying in its simplicity. Pleasingly frugal, too.
On, then, to new packets of seed and my deep December rush of blood on the Seeds of Italy website. I don’t know why I show so little restraint. Except maybe, somehow, seeds promise hope as well as beauty and good things to eat. This year we’ll be growing interesting squash and zucchini, though there’s little room for sprawl.
From Brown Envelope in Ireland, I’ve refreshed my supplies of burgundy amaranth, mustard oak fire and a spring salad mix. And from Real Seeds I have ordered more courgettes, broad beans and Cherokee Trail of Tears climbing beans.
There are assorted marigolds and more from Plants of Distinction and much bee-friendly flower mix for the Danish meadow from Higgledy Garden.
This is, of course, not to say I won’t succumb to more. What I can promise is that, come late summer, every spare square inch of the plot will be a mass of colourful flowers and food.
Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 from guardianbookshop.com
