So it’s been a bit of a washout summer for gardeners, farmers and allotmenteers – and what else is there to do but plan for next year?  After all, next year will be so much better and it is this attitude that keeps us all going.  With that firmly in my mind, and a weed infested allotment to reclaim I’ve been busy digging my patch and preparing it for next year – one advantage of the rain is that I have been able to dig out dandelions roots and all – which would have been a horrible task if the earth had been baked hard.

I am very happy to have completed digging over the square bed on the plot (marked out by previous incumbent and I’ve chosen to keep it) and whilst the bindweed and dandelions are continuing to pop up, gradually they are getting weaker and smaller, and fortunately I find weeding to be good therapy.  This bed will be the focus of my energies for next year as it is to be my cutting flowers bed.  Most exciting of all is that many cutting varieties are hardy annuals, meaning you sow them in September – which brings me to my ‘synchroseedsow’.

I’ve bought a fine selection of seeds from the wonderful Higgledy Garden site – if you’ve not seen it do take a look.  Mr Higgledy grows flowers for cutting, and not only sells fabulous bouquets, but the seed as well.  He has also put together a collection of seeds for autumn sowing.  I’ve bought the collection, and various other seeds as well and whilst engaged in a conversation on Twitter last week I suggested it might be fun to synchronise the sowing of a few varieties just to compare notes with other Tweeters.

If you would like to join in that would be fabulous and this is what I’ve suggested we do:

Aim to sow on Sunday September 2nd – or thereabouts (it is not a very scientific exercise)

Sow from this list of varieties, all or as many as you wish to grow, have room for etc: Cerinthe major, Cornflower, Gypsophila, Larkspur, Sweet Pea(needs to be sown later than Sept) Nigella, Calendula, Molucella, Ammi majus, Escholtzia, Scabious, Godetia.  I will certainly be sowing the Calendula, Larkspur, Cornflower and Nigella on Sunday 2nd, some of the others will be later in the month.

Tweet, using the hashtag synchroseedsow (if you are on Twitter you can find me at @inoutofmygarden) or post here that you’ve done this, and then again once each variety starts to germinate, each time using the hashtag (in my dreams we’ll trend on Twitter).  Then we’ll take it from there.  And next year we can celebrate with a lovely selection of flowers for cutting!