Last Christmas I was gifted a box of veggie seeds. With the weather starting to warm up a little, I can't wait to start my 2026 growing season and take full advantage of my new greenhouse that I bought at the end of last year. I talked about that in my last LUT Garden Journal in 2025.
Seedlings
As usual, I'm winging everything as I don't know if it's really the right time to sow seeds yet. I sowed 12 different seedlings including tomatoes, peas and beans, bak Choi, lettuce, and marigold. The marigolds did well last year keeping bugs away. I hope they will be equally effective this year. I plan to sow more seeds next month in case these fail. If they succeed, that's great, I can have a continuous supply of fresh produce.
This year I saw a lot of people talking about seed snails on the internet. You lay some compost on a strip of plastic, roll it up and then plant the seeds on top. It's supposed to save space and give the seeds enough space to grow long roots. I thought I'd give it a go and did three rolls. It will be interesting to see how the seedlings turn out with this method.
Easy gains to start off the season
Forgotten seedlings
A couple months ago I bought some citrus fruit that was very juicy and sweet. I thought I'd try to grow them from the seeds, wrapped a few in moist tissue and sealed them in a plastic bag. The problem is I forgot to label it, and now I can't remember exactly what they are. I just know they're definitely some sort of citrus fruit. Two seeds have sprouted first, and I've planted them in soil. There are two other seeds still wrapped up. Hopefully something will come out from the four of them. We shall see... maybe in a a few years time.
Lavender
Last year I got a lot of free lavender pug plants. I left them in the greenhouse all winter and luckily they have all survived, and are starting to grow new leaves now. Once they grow much bigger, I'll have to find somewhere to re plant them. I already have quite a lot of lavender at home, but they are really nice to have in the garden, you can never have too many.
Garden
In the past couple of years, I have had a lot of problems with my turf and the grass kept on dying after winter. Last year, I dug up the whole garden and returfed everything properly. The new turf has survived the winter and looks very lush. There are some small bald patches that I'll have to reseed, and finger crossed it will all become healthy in the summer and beyond. You'll notice the raised beds are very empty at the moment. I can't wait for them to fill up with nice fresh plants very soon.
In the meanwhile, I'm doing a little bit of maintenance. Last year I planted a salvia hotlips next to a lavender in my raise bed and it grew massive towering over my lavender. That's what it looked like on the left last year. Last week I cut back the salvia, you can just about see it in the corner now, I'm going to plant it in a pot this year so it doesn't go wild again.
Then I'm going to move the lavender to the ground in the corner of my garden. This area is in front of my greenhouse, and will allow the lavender to grow as much as it wants. Moving these two plants will give me a lot more growing space in my raised beds when my seedlings are ready.
Life in the garden again
It's very rewarding to see my plants have lived through winter and are waking up again. More importantly, it proves that I don't kill everything in my garden. Upwards and onwards for 2026!!
