Well, I watched Gardeners' World on BBC 2 last night and I cannot say that I was blown away by it. There were spectacular winter gardens and those white birches were out of this world. However, the amount of information about growing in a normal suburban garden or allotment was very limited.
I know it is a little early yet but there should be more reference to seed planting.
Monty Don talked a little about seed sowing and mentioned he was using his own mix of seed compost. This is where I started to listen a little more closely particularly with the new thread of allotments uk website about whether sterilised compost is necessary or even desirable. I must admit that I regularly mix seed and potting compost with mychorrhizal fungi.
Monty talked about using a mixture of leaf mould and loam and it would be really interesting if we could compare this with a commercial seed compost. John Innes seed compost is a soil based compost but it is still sterilised. I used to mix up John Innes composts when I worked at the Glasshouse and Crops Research Institute in Littlehampton. It would be interesting if they did a trial that we could watch over the weeks.
I think that I am going to experiment more with my own mixes of seed compost. I might not get the high germination rates of sterilised compost but maybe I will get healthier plants.
I've used home-made compost in the past. It worked well, but I'm not sure how you'd get round the problem of weed seeds if you didn't sterilise it.
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