It's been a quiet week on the gardening front anyway. I did manage to sow some more seeds direct on the plot at the weekend between torrential rain and hail showers, and this morning I sowed some purple sprouting broccoli in the greenhouse, but that's about it really.
SOWN:
Second row parsnips 'White Gem'
1/2 row chard 'Bright Lights'
1/2 row rocket 'Cultivated' (a variety from Real Seeds that promises a milder flavour and a slower bolting habit - just what I needed!)
1/2 row perpetual spinach
1/2 row lettuce 'Webb's Wonderful'
6 x broccoli 'Extra Early Sprouting Rudolph'
The lettuce and spinach in the greenhouse is starting to look good and I think we'll be eating the first of it this week. This is 11 weeks after sowing:
I'll sow some more as soon as I get some seedtrays freed up by planting out bigger crops; I'll see how much of the year I can keep a steady supply going. I've never yet been any good at successional sowings...
It's been a bad week for seedlings in the garden; the brassicas have been nibbled by snails and walked on by cats, some aubergines and celery have 'damped off', the tomatoes endured a brutal hailstorm when the weather changed suddenly one afternoon, a courgette plant had a nasty run-in with the greenhouse zip, and the snails have mown down ALL of my marigold seedlings! (And that's despite regular applications of the organic slug pellets!) With the exception of the damped off seedlings and the marigolds, things are recovering nicely though. Here are the tomatoes, doing well (though I'm sure seedlings grow slower for me than most people...)
For the record, the 'Costoluto Fiorentino' and the 'Golden Sunrise' grow veeery slowly and I had very poor germination from the 'Alicante' (you'll notice a couple of empty loorolls...). The 'Red Cherry' shot up extremely fast!
On the plot, the parsnip seedlings have settled in well (except a couple that were gobbled by slugs within the first couple of days) and the onions, shallots and garlic are shooting up nicely, both on the plot and in my trough in the garden.
Around January I collected up the seeds left scattered across the site of my favourite nasturtium plant last year. I thought I'd be economical with them and sowed just eight in February, but after weeks and weeks of waiting, nothing happened. Of course they say seeds should be kept cool and dry, and these were out getting wet all winter, so in desperation I bunged the whole lot in a mini-seedtray a few weeks ago hoping at least a couple popped up. Three weeks later, (you guessed it!) I've got a bazillion nasturtium seedlings fighting for space in one tiny seedtray! So I potted them up today too - thirteen of them anyway.
3 comments:
Hooray.
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I know what you mean about running out of space, I could do with a few more windows to put things on at the moment. It's time to try starting some seeds off directly into the ground, something that always scares me! ;)
Hey Nome, Thanks for your comments on my site. Your blog is fantastic! And you've grown so much in just one year. I've had my allotment for about the same amount of time as you but I'm a long way from running out of space!! I'll look forward to see how you get on this year.
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