A day to remember

What a difference a day makes! Toby explains how to capitalise on the extra daylight the spring equinox brings

I’M reading a book on anti-gravity – honestly, it’s impossible to put down! But seriously, I have been pondering the wonders of the solar system this week, largely because the angle of the planet below our toes has entered the perfect section of its solar orbit for sowing seeds.

March 20 is a key date in the gardening calendar – it marks the ‘spring equinox’ when, thanks to the earth’s slanted spin, the sun’s influence crosses the equator to favour the Northern hemisphere. It’s the only day (apart from September 22, the autumn equinox) that the sun rises due east and sets due west wherever you stand on the planet – but perhaps more noticeable is the change to plants.

Dormant buds break, weeds smother allotments, and seeds sown now will invariably catch up with counterparts planted earlier in the year. With the hours of daylight stretching (four minutes a day in the south, and five in Aberdeenshire) and the ever-rising temperature, the next few weeks represent a window of opportunity when everything, from chillies on the kitchen sill to calendulas sown straight in the soil, are more likely to romp away without special care.

Of course, there are a few things you can do to ensure they get off to a successful start: use fresh compost and water from the tap to reduce the risk of seed-killing damping-off fungus, which lurks in stagnant water butts and unsterilised multi-purpose.

Also, avoid the temptation to add an extra pinch of seed when sowing ‘for luck’. Medium-sized kernels of tomatoes and cosmos sown any closer than a centimeter will become gangly, fighting for light, while larger beans, squash and sunflowers planted too close will play twister instead of growing up.

One final plant/planet phenomena is the miracle of ‘geotropism’. Hormones inside roots direct their growth towards the gravitational pull of the planet’s core, while the shoots grow in the opposite direction. So even displaced plants in pots eventually find their way to the right way up – good to know if your seedlings get knocked over by the cat.

“This is a key window of opportunity”

When sowing, avoid the ‘extra pinch’ – if packed in tight, plants like tomatoes will quickly compete for light The transformative effects of the spring equinox will not be denied – the extended daylight helps the buds burst forth on this beech tree (Fagus sylvatica) With daylight length now increasing, the next few weeks will see those chillies on the windowsill start romping away with little intervention needed