Are you sitting comfortably?
Peter looks at the advantages of sit-down gardening
THERE is an old adage that states, ‘Don’t stand when you can sit and don’t sit when you can lie down!’ While it is difficult to garden from the horizontal, there are lots of plant-cultivating tasks we can complete sitting down.
I find myself doing more sitting at our picnic table, which is on hardstanding close to the back door (see videos on
sungardening.co.uk). Sowing seeds, taking cuttings, deadheading container plants, repotting, planting bulbs, cleaning lifted bulbs and collected seeds can all be done sitting down.
Many of the outdoor tables and chairs in gardens stand unused for most of the year, and mine is now more than a workstation as it is also staging for pot- grown plants. Bringing alpine plants up to waist height presents them well for appreciation, especially those with scent.
Containers of seasonal bedding, including those with trailing plants, are a joy to be seen cascading over the table edges. Summer-fruiting patio fruits and vegetables also stand well, and in the case of carrots in pots height takes them above the flight of egg-laying carrot fly.
Some of the pots are placed in shallow plastic trays, which serves several purposes: they are easier to water and keep watered in hot weather; the hardwood table top is kept clean and dry; when the table is needed for eating outside, it can be cleared more quickly.
Currently on warm, windless days tender plants and seedlings are taken out at first light to get the full benefit of the shortening days and less powerful sunlight, before them bringing in again at dusk. A drop in temperature at daybreak (technically called ‘diff’) encourages more sturdy growth, which is why head gardeners in the past insisted that cold frame lights [lids] were lifted to let in air first thing each morning.