The rain is hammering on the window as I type this; the snow has only just melted. Yet it’s time to be thinking seriously about what we’re going to be growing this year.

So I’ve made a list of what we’d like to be eating in summer 2009 and done an audit of the seeds left over from last year, picking out any that are past their sow-by date. I had thought these were a bit of a con, stamped on the packet to make you buy a new stash every couple of years, but after planting seeds beyond their dates last summer and either drawing blanks or picking a disappointing crop, I tend to be more trusting of them now.

So I’ve salvaged two packs of carrot seeds, some mint and cat grass, a packet of dwarf beans, half a pack of mushroom spores, some firetongue berlotti beans (past their date, but I want to give them a go and am prepared for the fact they might not work) and a pack of late-cropping broad beans.

Quite a variety, but there are some obvious gaps. We’re carrying over some of last year’s strawberries (and have three freebies coming as part of our order), and have one cane each of blackcurrant, redcurrant and raspberry still in the ground from 2008. The raspberries were disappointing, though, so we’ve ordered another nine canes in a pack, with three each of three different varieties cropping early-, mid- and late-season to keep us in fruit all summer long.

We’ve also ordered four types of tomato, including our three regulars – Golden Sunrise, Money Maker and Gardeners’ Delight – and a new one to the garden, Black Russian, a purpley black variety that will give our salads some interesting variety. We’ve also ordered a new pack of French beans, as ours are now past their date.

Other than that, though, we’re set for the year ahead, with just two more seed sets yet to buy: potatoes and rhubarb, which we really wanted to fill out a big gap to one side of the chicken run. The seed potatoes, we’ve found, are cheaper at the DIY store, and the rhubarb isn’t up for delivery until the end of spring, which if it held up the whole order so it could be dispatched in one go would put us far behind schedule on this year’s planting.

Foul weather aside, it feels good to be getting sorted for this year’s crops already.

Related posts:

1. Our 2010 seeds have arrived
2. We’ve ordered our seeds for 2010
3. What seeds should you plant in February?