Words and pics by Jo BELASCO, a former allotmenteer, forager, amateur herbalist, pickler and jam maker who squeezed her allotment greenery into her tiny garden.

It’s the time of year seed sowers get itchy palms, we are ready to go. Unfortunately, not all seeds are ready to be sown but I have found three in my seed drawer ready to rock (indoors) – cucumber, sweet basil and pea shoots!

For Christmas I was given some vermiculite, light, scentless and scrunchy it was the most mysterious parcel under the tree that year.
Many famous TV gardeners use it to keep the moisture in and stop the soil getting claggy when sowing seeds and as quite a few of mine had died of thirst last year I guess I had hinted heavily and been heard!

It’s a new thing to me really and like all new things we humans are naturally suspicious ( or is it just me?).
Things I had not realised are that it’s a mineral mined abroad – I don’t really know where I thought it came from – but it wasn’t that. It’s actually magnesium-aluminium- -iron silicate. Gloves are recommended as, if used a lot, it can cause irritation of the skin.
I was feeling a little put off to be honest but I remembered that when I tried to find a natural substitute for dry-wall joint compound when making some papier-mache clay, it turned out the natural substitute of cuttlefish I proudly found on the beach would need the same recommendations of a mask as essentially it’s the dust particles which are not good for us.

My armature bust is still sitting waiting for its final white layer; gloves donned I am not going to let the same thing happen with my early seeds!