Phacelia

Here’s what’s ahead:

• Getting Started

• Sowing

• Location

• Care

• Enjoy

Getting Started

Important information at a glance:

• Germination temperature: 12-18 °C

• Sowing depth: 1-2 cm

• Germination time: 7-14 days

• Sowing indoors: March – September

• Relocate outdoors: from May

• Sowing outdoors: April – September

• Row spacing: 15 cm

• Plant spacing: 15 cm

• Root depth: 25 cm

• Location: sunny

• Nutrient requirements: low

Swipe right on the beautiful purple Phacelia flower in your garden or on your balcony, and you will get a 100% match. Like the marigold, the phacelia is particularly valuable for the soil, since it releases its nutrients to it and subsequent plants can access it. It also keeps weeds away. And on top of all that, it looks absolutely gorgeous.

So let’s get planting!

Sowing

Sowing indoors (in a pot):

• From March to September.

• Fill your pot with potting soil.

• Poke 1 to 2 cm deep holes in the soil.

• You can sow either at a distance of 15 cm, or more densely. Then, you will have to separate them later.

• Take your seed paper from your calendar and tear it into small pieces.

• Spread the seed-paper snippets in the holes.

• Place the pots on a bright window sill.

• Then just keep the seeds moist, and soon the first tender seedlings will appear.

Sowing outdoors:

• From April to September.

• Poke 1 to 2 cm deep holes in your bed, either 15 cm apart or closer together if you want to separate later. If you sow closer together, it's not so bad if a seed doesn't come up or a bird pecks it away.

• Tear your seed paper into small pieces and distribute the seeds in the holes.

• Cover the seeds with soil and keep them moist until germination.

Separating:

• If your phacelia seeds sprout too close together, you need to pluck out the weaker ones so that the remaining flowers can grow well.

• Final plant spacing: 15 cm

• You can of course try to replant them in another spot - this process is called pricking out.

Location

• Sunny

• Phacelia has no special demands on the soil – on the contrary, it even helps to treat the soil by storing its nutrient reserves in the soil, thus making them available to subsequent crops.

• Works well with all kinds of bed neighbours.

Care

• If you've planted your flowers in pots, be sure you keep the soil moist, but avoid waterlogging.

• This is not necessary outdoors, as the plants quench their thirst using their long roots to access deeper water sources.

• Fertilising is not necessary.

Enjoy

• From June to September, the Phacelia raises its feathery leaves and purple-blue spikes of flowers in the air, giving you a summer of joy.

• It is not edible, at least not for us humans – but for a lot of insects, it’s a proper feast.