September always feels like the proper start to the year. Forget gloomy old January, September feels new and refreshing. And so it’s the time when I think of my gardening year starting. And, as ever, it starts with little people.
So I am currently busy scouring charity shops for pretty china tea cups and bowls for our annual autumn project. Next stop shall be the garden centre for forced hyacinth bulbs. This is a great green-fingered task for children and one that I regularly trot out at gardening club. Usually I get club members to bring in a clean jam jar, or an old mug which is fab as they can then easily identify which belongs to them.
Bulb fibre is also on my shopping list and, to make the hyacinth bulbs that will adorn our home look prettier, some moss (if I am feeling flush). And. because I now have the luxury of visiting garden centres sans children, I can come away with the coloured bulbs that I like, namely white ones this year.
Then we get potting. I have a few chipped china bowls and jaunty mugs that have not withstood the children loading the dishwasher and arrange these on the kitchen table. Next I let the children loose on the bulb fibre, filling the mugs and bowls three-quarters high. Then they place the bulb on top, infilling with more fibre, leaving some of the bulb showing. If I have any spare of the right size, I let them fill a jam jar with water and pop the bulb to rest on the mouth. Then they can see the roots when formed.
A quick water and they (the mugs not the children) get popped into a cool, dark place. Which shall be my potting shed (when it has a roof) or, at school, the boiler room. We water them when the compost is dry and bring them inside when the shoots are about two inches high.
If you’re organised, you can have these blooming in your house by Christmas. And if you’re really organised you can arrange it so you have a steady supply of them for a couple of months, at least through the bleakest part of winter.
They also make great teachers’ presents, but again you have to be thinking of buying them Christmas presents in September or October, which I refuse to do this year. So they’re all getting a goat (kind of) and I shall enjoy our hyacinths.
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Steve Hudson
Thanks, I’d forgotten.
linda penney
what alovely read and i must a mit i forgot it is really the start of the garedning year when you think we clear the beds and put compost over for the winter to break up and encough new growth for all our seeds
happy gardening