Pre-Spring, creeps up on you gently.

My mornings are still painstakingly timed to allow maximum cuddled up in bed time, the train becomes my breakfast nook and hair salon, all for a few more precious hours in my warm feather cocoon. But with the first few days that hit 20C, the first fruit trees bloom and the warm breeze brings sweet perfumes wrapped up with nostalgic memories of jasmine wreath crowns and daisy chains. Birds are stealing straw and string for nests and parakeets play court jester in the leafy canopy above.

I’m just itching to get planting, but gardeners beware for this is a “False Spring” one day of glorious sunshine can be followed by a freezing one with a real nasty bite to it. It’s going to get busy when True Spring arrives next month so I might as well get the nursery ready before the babies go in! Ha! It’s time to start preparing the Solanaceae garden bed for planting out when the weather is warmer, any planting is better done inside or under glass to protect it from the chill. I’ve been reading up on how to make your own seed raising and potting mix and am excited to share with you the recipes, once my seedlings taste the goodies I put in, they won’t be able to go back to that icky commercial stuff.

Seed Raising Mix

Seeds are a neat little packages, with enough nutrients to send stems and leaves skyward towards the light. That means that seed raising mix doesn’t need to be particularly rich in nutrients, but it does need to be friable (crumbly texture, not sticky like clay, easy for root grow through)

Seed Raising Mix Ingredients:
2 parts sifted compost
2 parts soaked fine coconut coir
1 part sifted cow manure
1 part coarse river sand

Potting Mix Recipe

When seedlings have developed their first set of adult leaves they need a little boost, so I add some worm castings to the mix. I am careful not to add too much nutrient rich material as this can lead to weak, leggy growth seedlings susceptible to disease and pests.

Homemade Potting Mix Ingredients:
2 parts compost
2 parts soaked fine coconut coir
2 parts worm castings
1 part cow manure
1 part coarse river sand

Garden Bed

Annual roots are as delicate as cobwebs and plants like tomatoes that suffer badly from transplant shock need to have their garden beds well settled before they go in, at least a month beforehand so I recommend anyone starting from scratch with a no dig garden get it ready in the next few months.

I have heard that when looking through a microscope settling soil looks like little “earthquakes” around delicate roots. No wonder it results in stressed unhappy plants!

Infrastructure

If stabilising soil is like a mini earthquake, then a stakes slicing into established roots may be like a meteor shower. I planned the location of my tomato stakes carefully so I could put them in now, rather than after the plants have already been planted out.
As shown in my plan I have placed hardwood stakes, offcuts from Agroforestry, in three hexagonal patterns around central stakes. Each tomato will have its own triangular enclosure, supported by string horizontals as they grow.