Pea seeds – to soak or not to soak …

Do you or don’t you soak your pea seeds before germination? Old wives’ tales say that you should (it speeds up and increases germination) or that you shouldn’t (it breaks through the embryonic seed case and allows disease in) or that you should soak them in paraffin (to prevent mice eating the seeds).

So we decided on a bit of an experiment – and one packet of smooth peas (hardy growers but not as sweet as the later wrinkled peas), a whole bunch of toilet roll inners and some compost later … a test!

Fifty-one seeds were soaked overnight in cold water. Fifty-one weren’t. Each seed was planted in a toilet roll inner and put in an unheated greenhouse. The soaked seeds had a blue wavy line drawn around their toilet roll inner for instant identification. That was nine days ago.

Today – two pea seedlings!

But both, rather worryingly, have appeared in the unsoaked tray. Perhaps there will be a better germination rate from the soaked seeds by the end of the experiment, but right now, it looks to me as if soaking pea seeds might be a waste of time. In the spirit of allotment innovation, I’ll keep you posted as the germination progresses (hopefully) and we’ll see what the final outcome is when we get to plant the seedlings out.

Labels: allotment-germination, allotment-overwintering-crops, allotment-peas

Broad Bean Planting

On two allotments and in one garden, I shall be sowing broad beans this weekend. There are few crops about which I’d say ‘you can’t have enough’ because you can definitely have too much of some: courgettes and spinach, for example, but broad beans, like raspberries, are something I just can’t get enough of, particularly as broad beans freeze so incredibly well.

Autumn-sown broad beans have several advantages: they do not need a rich soil and can be sown on ground that has been manured for a previous crop, as long as it has good drainage, you can sow them directly 5cm deep in double rows in late October which gives them a chance to establish good roots to support the heavy yields you hope they will carry next year! Over the winter the plants should reach 5-10cm tall and then stay this size through to spring – but out of sight they are putting on side roots to allow spring growth. To promote this, you can add an organic fertiliser around the roots in the spring and rake it in lightly, being careful not to damage the roots.

And in spring they’ll take off, producing those distinctive white and black flowers, and a lovely light scent that draws bees from miles away.

Labels: allotment-broad-beans, allotment-overwintering-crops