I am planting some seeds out. So what do we have here? Well, we have a fantastic collection of what I hope will be cut flowers. I'm going to be the cut flower woman this year. I'm going to have a Chelsea Award-winning cut flower bed of Dahlias and a thing called Treasure Flower. 

We have China Aster, fluffy ones, basically pinks, purples, white, and pale yellow pom-poms. They grow quite high, 70 centimeters, and they're a staple of the garden podcast every year. Not to forget the sunflower, the humble sunflower. 

I'm also planting sunflowers

And this year, I've gone for a packet, you know, one of those lovely seed packets full of promise. Golden Promise is the American giant yellow sunflower. 500 centimeters, what's that? Five meters? Oh my God, that's brilliant. Okay, I love it on the label. 

It has symbols and stuff. You know, these packets from different brands that try to use symbols to tell you what's what. So we have a symbol of a butterfly, so I'm guessing it's good for butterflies and wildlife. And underneath that, there's a knife and fork symbol. Oh, and there's a free label inside, so that'll help. 

Right, so I'm going for these new brilliant propagator things. Okay, let me describe them. I'm not sure what they're called, but basically, they are seedling pods in a 4x6 arrangement. So we have... My math is so terrible today. 4 times 6 is 24. I've had a long week. 

It's been really full-on, but I'll get on to that probably. These pods come with a lid that goes on top. Okay, it's plastic, but we're going to try and preserve it forever. 

So it's double-use plastic. This is a lid, and the joyful thing about it is that it keeps all the seedlings damp. It's such a pain, isn't it, trying to sprinkle them with water? 

Plus, underneath is a tray that makes me feel professional. Okay, so I've got a handful. I've been holding it the whole time I've been speaking to you. Remember Gareth Hunt in the coffee advert, who would shake the coffee beans behind his ear and then pull them out and sniff them? That's exactly what I've got with these seeds. Although they're not coffee bean-sized, that's probably a reference that will go over many people's heads. It was an advert. Coffee, blah, right.

So I'm putting the treasure flower in, and I'm hoping they're going to be an absolute treasure. I'm going to plant a few different plants and see how we get on. Just the usual fare, giving it a go. Don't have a clue about gardening? Just stick some stuff in the ground! 

And I must say, today is full of promise and springtime niceness. We've had a really cold snap. It snowed again, but sometimes it really warms up. Today, in fact, it's the first time in the greenhouse we've actually opened the windows. News just in. 

Oh Lordy, I think I've lost the plot this week. Seriously, I've been a bit stressed. You know, I'm going to be honest, a bit stressed about money. Sometimes it gets like that when you run your own business. You're a bit like, "Alright, we were doing really well last year. Where's all the work now?" And then you remember that you have to actually make the work come along your way. So I've been doing a bit of that, all hands to the pump, and it's been a bit stressful. But that's okay. That's what it is. I loved Mark, oh, I can't remember his name?

Anyway, in his book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Beep," he says, "Pick the problems that you like solving in life. You know, don't just moan about, 'Oh, life is so full of problems. I can't solve them' or 'Life is so difficult.'" And it is. It is difficult and challenging. But if you can find the problems that you don't actually mind solving, like finding work, finding customers, that sort of thing, I love that sort of work. I'm a nut job about that. But anyway, yeah, that was interesting. 

Right, I'm going to go straight for sun flowers now because I have a free label and I want to use it now. 

What's your rule of thumb, gardeners, for the sunflower? How many do you want in your garden? How much collateral damage will there be? Should I plant all of them? Or are there loads of them? I don't want that many sunflowers in my garden. Or do I? 

Interuption to my cut flower seed planting!

They're going to be part of the... Oh, so it. Let's do it. I don't know how many there are, about 25. Some won't work, that's fair enough. Some will. Oh, now what I want to do, this has annoyed me. My husband came into the greenhouse. 

"What are you doing?" he asked. 

"I'm planting some sunflowers, darling," I said. 

And he went, "Alright, okay, I'll help." 

"I don't want your help. I'm really happy doing my thing."

And then he filled the seed tray all the way to the top and patted it down really hard without being asked. I didn't want it to go like that. I wanted to take my time. And then he said, "Just plant them all out. Don't just do some flowers, plant them all out." 

Gardening, adult parallel play!

It's like, what? Just get lost, you know? Parallel play. Kids do that, don't they? That's what I wanted to have in the garden today, just me and the hunky husband doing separate things, just relaxing, not having to speak to each other after a long week. And now he's in my grill, patting down soil when I don't want it patted down. Does that make me sound intolerant? Yes, it does. Do I care? No, I don't.

But what I've done is gone, "Right, okay, that's brilliant. Leave me alone." And the thing I love about my hunky husband is that he takes instruction well. When I say "leave me alone," I don't mean it harshly or to stop loving me. I just mean, give me some space. And he just goes, "Do you want a cup of tea?" And he goes off and makes a brew. Then he comes back, and we have a little sit-down, and I think about it all over again. I say, "I've planted those sunflower seeds," and he goes, "Oh, that's nice. Where are you going to put them?" And then we have a different chat. 

It's the fascinating world of Penny Haslam, right? So what I've done is basically scraped off all the heavily patted-down soil that was in my little seed trays, so I can just place the sunflower seeds in without having to dig them in. Then I can cover them loosely with soil. 

Now, on the packets, it slightly worried me for a split second. It said, "Use sewing compost," at which point I was like, "Oh my God, I don't have sewing compost. I need to go to the garden centre where the lady always rips me off." 

But actually, to his credit, and he always does this, my hunky husband is a very reassuring man. He said, "You don't need sewing compost. Just plant them in the ground. Give it a go, you know." So here I am with a bit of normal, commoner gardener compost and some seeds. They just like compost and soil, don't they? It doesn't matter really what it is. You don't have to get fancy. I think there's a lot of geekiness about this, and I have mentioned it before in previous podcasts. Everything attracts an element of geekiness, doesn't it? Language, technology, equipment, vernacular, you know, the stuff we refer to once you're in the know, when you're in the know.

Do you need sewing compost?

Now, if you're not in the know as a gardener, it can be riddled with insecurity. So yeah, I'm a bit knackered today. Although it's Sunday and sunny, I'm not feeling like a spring lamb. I am feeling a bit like, "Alright, let's just get this day done and go back to bed again." So that's not very good for a positive mindset. But normally, I'm a very positive person. 

Why be happy when you can be normal!

My mum, actually, I don't know if I mentioned this before, and it always tickles me every time I think about it. She once said to me, and this is recently, I was jollying her along, I think, or I was trying to put a lovely frame on things to be less gloomy. Because often we speak to ourselves in a way that is like, "Oh, it's all gonna go wrong" or "Oh no, I've never done this before, it's gonna be crap." 

We worry about things and ruminate, or we cast into the future into the "what if?" or "What if the gas man doesn't turn up and do this thing on the day that I said I was going to be in?" You know, there's a whole load of stuff in life we can really go for it with, can't we? And the worry. And we know we worry in the middle of the night, loudly, about stuff like this. 

So I try to reframe it so we don't need to worry about that sort of thing, do we? Anyway, I was trying to jolly my mom out of some sort of worry fug that she was in. She went, "Oh, trust you to be positive." We are northern. I don't know if that's got a bearing on things. Now, onto the dahlias. I'm going to wrap it up now because I have a few more rows of seeds to plant. I'm going to do dahlias and I'm going to do the China Asters. They're a bit similar. So I'm going to get on with that because I'm sure that listening to me plant and sow seeds is not the most exciting garden podcast. Joey's even fallen asleep. That's how exciting it's been. Thrill a minute as I plant out these seeds. Right, that's the Dahlias. Oh, can you hear that? Crunchy seeds full of promise.

How to plant a cut flower garden