Earthing up Potatoes plus flowers and outside progress

As mentioned in my last blog post the Potatoes have grown really well and had actually started falling over out of the bags...

I have today got round to filling the remainder of each bag up with compost and standing them up a bit prouder:

The falling down Potatoes. One thing I really do wish I had done is make the wooden Potato planter idea which I have linked to elsewhere and, when I get a chance, will look up the link and put it here. They have grown so well it would have been nice to have been able to care for them a little more as these little bags really are NOT big enough at all.

This is one of the Potato plants (not sure which variety) which has been lifted and supported better by the addition of more soil around it. Hopefully this will also fill with Potatoes.

Whilst I was outside I took a few progress pictures; this is the Foxglove which is looking like at least one of the plants has survived; it will not grow fast enough for me to see a result however I think I have learned a bit and will be planting many of these in my next garden.

This is the bed with the Coriander in it, with the shop bought one clear at the front, and the stringy seed grown plants looking wind blown, but if you look closely showing signs of green returning to them. I am confident these will now take and provide herbs next year.

This slightly blurry picture is the Chives which have definitely taken and will now probably go mad like the ones before at my old garden.

Finally for this brief update I have got flowers on my Begonias which are on my bedroom windowsill right next to my head as I sleep so I am now getting some nice whiffs off them (which makes a difference, in my bedroom I can tell you...)

This Begonia just has one flower on it but it is very pretty indeed.

This one is slightly larger and is covered in flowers. I hope that these will live for more than one year; it would be nice to have these every year.

Anyway, that's me for today.

Keep growing, keep reading

Some long delayed planting out and potting up

After no blogs for ages, now two in two days!

This is blog about some jobs that I have been putting off for many weeks indeed; two tasks which have probably directly contributed to a lower yield this year and two the death of maybe more than one plant.

First of all, my seed grown Coriander has been sat on the front windowsill since I separated the tiny seedlings into five distinct clumps and it grew well there (as you will see if you look back through the blogs) however a month or so ago it started getting too straggly and dry and ever since I have been planning on planting it outside; the second part of this plan was to put the Gardeners Delight Tomato plants (yes, plants; I  now have another seedling showing finally; more proof of the benefit of patience) onto this window as they are lagging badly behind the Moneymakers.

So, without any more blah blah blah words here are the pictures...

The five clumps of seed grown Coriander looking dry, covered in flowers, and seed blown; I think these have just got too dry with me only being able to water them twice a day.

Here is a picture of a hole. Yep. I want to excite you THAT much...

And here is the final result of the potting out of the five clumps of seed grown Coriander planted out around the established shop bought Coriander.

This picture is one of many which I took while planting out the Coriander; there must have been about thirty or forty bees clustered around the flowers on this bush all busily collecting pollen. In this picture you can see two of them near the middle of the picture; fantastic.

While I was outside I took the opportunity also of taking some pics of the other growth and progress...

First of all the exploding Potato plants which have completely filled their planters; I am going to struggle now to earth these up; this is going to be a challenge for tomorrow not today though. I am just very pleased they are growing so well after the total failure of last year.

The Lettuce has been shaded slightly by the Potato plants so they are looking a little yellow here; I have now moved them and watered them and will pay more attention I think.

The onions are growing and growing well; I cannot work out how the bulbs will be developing in there but hey.

Oh look it is a lot of Broccoli...

The other task which I have been putting off for ages was potting the Ghost Chilli Pepper from the heated propagator tray where it has been stalling in its growth; sadly while I was away on holiday the second seedling died.

I have some warmed compost on the left, and the Ghost Chilli Pepper tray on the right.

The surviving Ghost Chilli is looking quite strong here but, to its right, you can see the shriveled remains of its brother which didn't survive my holiday.

The Ghost Chili in it's new plant pot.

I have now moved the Ghost Chilli and the two Gardeners Delight Tomato plants onto the front windowsill so they get more sun during the days; hopefully this will cause some fruit to develop on these three plants.

Anyway, there we are; my update.

More soon

Different stages of the Chilli fruiting

I've had another few busy weeks so haven't had that much chance to do any updates on here however I have got round to taking some pictures for a series I have wanted to do.

My Crossley Special Chillis have been growing very well; probably the best of all (apart from the potatoes but that is for another update).

I now have Chilli fruits in all stages of growth so, for your delectation, here is a photo blog of that process:

This is a new flower starting to show on the Crossley Special Chilli plant.

Another flower but this one open and ready for insemination.

This flower has been fertilised and so the flower has gone brown and is dropping off, while the base of the flower is turning into a Chilli.

Here we have three Chillis growing showing that sometimes the dead flower stays attached to the bottom of the fruit.

Finally another more mature Chilli which has managed to grow down through the plastic ring used to stake the plant up.

So there you have it.

I have one other picture to show you, some good classic Tomato porn:

I now have two tomatoes on one of the Moneymaker's; you can see, similar to the Chillis, that the dead flower has stuck to the bottom of the fruit.

So, I do have LOADS of other things to update you on, like the potatoes have gone INSANE and grown huge (wish I had done the wooden planter design this year now but never mind... I'll not get as much crop as I could have done but it still proves last year was just bad luck) and I also have a tiny Gardeners Delight tomato plant (very late in the year now, I doubt I'll get much off of them).

Keep growing, and keep reading.

Cheers

Potting up the Tomatoes

So it has been a very long time since my update, due to foreign travels and then a week spending all the money buying all the whisky!

When I got back I had some pretty bad news in that the plants in the heated propagator have all died (I think I may have saved on Ghost Chilli) but still not a good thing; everything else however is fine.

This update I am not going to post pictures of dead plants because it'll depress me. Instead I had to pot up the Tomatoes in the self watering planters into slightly larger ones and so you are lucky to be treated to these...

As you can see the compost in this is completely full of roots now...

The roots have grown so far they have come through the bottom of the planter and grown down the wick into the reservoir.

I have these larger water bottles from a camping trip which I am going to convert into a self watering planter.

The water bottle, cut in half and positioned with the reservoir at the bottom.

Yes, that is an old pair of my boxer shorts and yes there is a good reason for this picture....

.... in the absence of any spare shoe laces, and not wanting to remove the ones from the shoes I am currently wearing, I decided to use these boxers as the wick; here I have cut along the waist band and then down in an L shape to make the wick.

The long end is then threaded through a hole in the water bottle lid with the waste band end still protruding where it will go into the bottle.

The lid tightened back up onto the bottle with the wick in place.

Starting to add moist compost to the planter, with the wick pulled through it to assist in transporting water throughout.

The Tomato plant transplanted into its new larger home. I have had to gaffer tape the stake so it didn't keep falling over, something which I didn't consider prior to the move.

Very exciting news: I have one Tomato developing on the plant, with a load of other flowers looking promising.

So there you are, Tomato update done.

While I was outside doing the re-potting I took some pictures of progress amongst the outdoor plants.

The Potato plants have shot up since I last looked; they need earthing up but are way out of the bags already...

The Lettuce plants are starting to look like lettuce plants, but are still small. I hope they start to grow a bit faster; I think maybe this is because I haven't watered them at all... I did water them after this picture was taken though.

The Onion plants are also looking ok but still quite small. I may pull one of these soon just to see what is happening underneath the soil *impatient*

The Broccoli is probably overcrowded now as it has continued to have the best growth. I may have failed slightly with this because I have ignored it and, apparently, they like good regularly watering. Oh well.

The shop bought Chives are looking ok; they haven't died at least.

The original shop bought Coriander is starting to look established; if I can resist eating it then this may become a very good bush.

Of all the Foxglove only one seems to have survived but it is looking ok.

So there you are: Tomato potting up, and some good progress.

It'll not be as long til my next update as I'm now back and not planning on jetting off round the world too many more times.

Keep growing.