My week in sowing 10 - Beetroot, dill and african daisy

I was hoping for great clouds of this slightly pink grass, so far lacking, but
hopefully I will get a nice pot-full outside 

I have really enjoyed this 'my week in sowing' series that I have been doing since about February.  Its nice for me to be able to round up everything I have been achieved each week, and also like a diary it has allowed me to keep track of when certain things went in and how long they took to germinate.  However, I have started to come to the end of mass sowing, and while I will no doubt still be throwing more seed in here and there, im particularly thinking cosmos here as not a single one of my second batch has bothered to germinate, it will not be enough to justify a whole post.  So stopping on a lovely round number ten, this is the last week in sowing.  So this week I sowed:

Panicum Elegans - Frosted explosion. I have already sowed two small pots of this right back in February.  Nothing germinated for absolutely ages, and then finally four seedlings popped up in one pot.  Three I believe are this particular variety of grass, the other looks more like a sneaky aquilegia that has somehow cross contaminated.  Anyway, three plants, if all survive which is doubtful, is not really as much as I had hoped for, so as these can be direct sown I have sown a bunch of seeds directly in a big pot on the patio to see if we get better results.  I think a whole pot of this would look lovely being such a delightful airy grass, and allow me to cut some and use it in vases.  But if nothing comes up im sure I can just chuck something else in there to grow instead.

Beetroot - Detroit 2 (Crimson Globe).  I once grew beetroot before.  And by grew I mean, I sowed some seed and nothing came up, at all.  All very disappointing.  Maybe the quality of my veg bed was below par for them at the time, maybe beetroot just don't enjoy my somewhat solid soil.  Either way the combination of previous poor results and lack of space means my second attempt at growing beetroot is going to be in a pot.  How can a beetroot justify not growing when it is given beautiful compost to grow in?  The packet said plant the seeds an inch deep four inches apart, so I just planted them in concentric circles as near to the measurements as I could.  I might sow another pot of these, but we will see.

Dill - Anethum graveolens. Unusual, you may be thinking.  Having never mentioned a herb in the whole time I have been doing this blog, you may be wondering why I have sown a whole pot of one.  Not for its flavour is the reason.  I saw this growing tall and statuesque in a cottage garden just as some greeny and a bit of structure and I was rather taken with it.  So much so I thought i must have some of that myself!  Im planning to use it to add greenery to vases, might be a terrible idea but we will give it a go and see!  I sprinkled then covered the seeds as they seemed to large to leave exposed on the surface.

African Daisy - Osteospermum salmon. I saw some flowers in another garden last year and was totally taken by them.  They had beautiful blue centres and the strangest petals, like frogs toes.  I discovered through research that they were african daisies.  Evidently it is impossible to buy the seed in this country, not that I can figure out why, so when I saw a packet at Kew gardens claiming to be just that, I jumped at buying them.  However, these are not them, if you get me.  These are a different type of daisy that apparently quite often get mislabelled.  They are however a lovely salmon orange daisy, and I am never one to say no to another daisy, so I have sown these nonetheless.

Rudbekia - Cappuccino. I sowed two small pots of rudbekia back when I sowed my first batch of sunflowers in freezing February.  Absolutely nothing has happened since then.  I have no idea why, but not one seed has germinated.  I have been holding out hoping that maybe these just take a really really long time, but there comes a point when one has to be a realist and accept that something has gone wrong.  If I didn't sow more now the window of opportunity would have closed, so i took it while I still could.

Sunflowers - Why are am I growing more sunflowers when I already have two lovely big plants and three more on the way?  Why am I indeed!  There is a whole tale that goes with this, a tale I will be going into in my next post!  Its like peppergate all over again, but with a weird twist!