Obeying the iron law that seeds only germinate *after* the gardener has given up on them, my Himalayan poppies have finally popped up having been planted in March and largely given up for dead in April.
There’s no end to the disasters that may befall these tiny little scraps of green before they get a chance to turn into any sort of display of flowers but it feels like an achievement anyway. And besides, tending seedlings is really my favourite part of gardening – as I said in my last post, my gardening tends to be of the kill or cure variety but there’s something about these hopeful little green shoots emerging from the soil that makes me spend far too much time watering them, turning them, blowing gently on them to encourage stronger growth, and just generally hanging over them hoping they’ll be okay out there in the big bad world.
But all good things must come to an end, and my pea plants were beginning to tangle their tendrils with each other so out they went today in the first real test of our new raised beds (the potatoes got there first, but potatoes will effectively grow in anything so they don’t really count).
For now they’re still getting a little cossetting with bottle cloches and a precautionary slug trap, but soon they’ll have to fend for themselves.
Meanwhile, if anyone’s got any tips for germinating lemon seeds, I’d be grateful. Assuming that the iron law doesn’t apply in this case, and the batch I planted weeks ago doesn’t surprise me tomorrow …
Town Mouse 
My poppies took ages as well, it must be all the meditation they do before they get going. Having killed two complete planting’s of dwarf French beans I put 30 of them in a shallow tray of compost to see if any actually sprouted. I think I need to get another batch.
I see minimum alcohol pricing has come in. How long before the huge Calais type off licences open in Carlisle….
I start almost everything in trays first. My dwarf french beans have been pretty rubbish though
If you got your lemon seeds from store-bought lemons, they may be infertile hybrids, which precludes people saving the seeds from their lemons, planting them and growing lemon trees of their own, coincidentally no longer needing to buy their lemons from the original growers.
I don’t think I’m going to make much of a dent in the lemon industry’s profits here in Scotland …
I have been planting lemon (or grapefruit) seeds for years, at first soaking them into water until they germinate, and finally I found that the best method is to randomly push them into a flower pot full of mold, water them, and forget about them altogether. Once in ten times, it gives a small tree… But you have to be patient, or forgetful.
Yeah, that sounds like the iron law in action
Can one grow lemons in Scotland? I always think of them as more tropical plants.
Indoors, apparently. I don’t imagine it will work, but it was filed under ‘worth a shot’
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