I thought I was doing very well with my Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii, a type of spurge with an irresistible name. The reference material that came with the seeds said it takes up to 90 days to germinate and mine were showing in little over a week. Except, a few weeks later, there were clearly two types of plant coming up and I recognised both as Cosmos bipinnatus and Malva sylvestris, which I had set potted up round about the time the Euphorbia got going.

Hah! That will teach me to be (a) overconfident and (b) careless about reusing compost that might contain laggard seeds. Yesterday I pulled out the Cosmos and Malva and still have a couple of what I think are Euphorbia just showing their heads. All is not lost but I suspect I might have had more if I had been more careful.

Lesson learned. I still don’t want to waste compost but I think I will re-use it at the bottom of pots used for potting up; at least that way, I will know what the main plant is and, if anything is inhibited from germinating, it will be the behind-schedule seeds.