Birdseye Chilli in detail

So for a few weeks now I have been muttering and complaining about the bad progress of my Birdseye Chillis and the other day I managed to knock one of the leaves off using the mighty power of a drop of condensation from the lid of the heated propagator.

So this morning after being woken an hour early due to day break (but not sunlight) streaming in through the window I decided to take some detailed photographs of these seedlings and see if any of you lovely people may have some advice as to why they are doing so badly..?

So, here you are:

This is the Birdseye seedling which lost a leaf to condensation drippage; you can see the leaf under it to the right. The surviving leaves are all a bit crinkly and feel dry to the touch; not soft as leaves should be but stiff...

The other Birdseye seedling is in an even worse state with curled up leaves which are turning brown in the middle.

Another shot of the first Birdseye though this makes it look healthy! It isn't.....

Both Birdseye seedlings in this picture; each is only about 2-3" tall (contrast with the Crossley Specials which are all about to about 8-10" and have lots of leaves)

This is the second Birdseye and you can clearly see the brown on the leaves, with the completely shriveled leaf dangling down in front.

I have put this one in just because it is arty farty and I lied the picture.

One final picture of the more unhappy of the two Birdseye seedlings.

I really would like some advice/suggestions about this so please don't be shy.

By way of contrast these are the Ghost Chillis which are thriving, in the propagator box sat right next to the Birdseyes which leads me to believe it is not a problem with the amount of light they are receiving or the temperature at which they are being kept.

Finally, and slightly off topic, while taking these pictures I spotted the following little fella poking his way out through the compost:

This is the first pepper seedling to appear. Not bad only a few days after they were planted :) here's to the other three showing very soon too.

Thanks for reading and please do send me any advice.

Chillis and Begonias amongst other things

Wow it has actually been a long time since my last post (for me during a growing season, that is). I have many reasons and excuses but the one I'm going to deploy is that there wasn't much to show you and just continually posting nearly identical pictures might be boring you....

.... so anyway, I am posting because the progress is significant enough to show, even if I haven't actually done anything since the last post; this weather really is screwing with my planting schedules. I haven't even put the potatoes out yet!

However, as I have said, there is progress for you and I will not delay any more.

The Mint plant is a little smaller than it was last time you saw; this is because Sassy the rabbit got out and onto the window sill and ate half of it! It is still alive and is slowly getting back to growing again.

The Crossley Special Chillis are particularly enjoying being right in the front window which gets lots of sunlight and stays nice and warm through the day.

The two Ghost Chillis are fully established and, while they aren't growing upwards, they are looking very healthy and established with quite a good number of leaves.

By contrast the two Birdseye Chillis are not really established yet, both of them with only two first-leaves and still a bit spindly. I am keeping my eyes on these and checking them every day.

This is the Moneymaker Tomato which has now been on the floor twice (once my fault, once Sassy's) but as you can see it is still alive, still thriving and amazingly looks like it will become a healthy plant.

The other Moneymaker Tomato which is taller and more established than the one which has been on the floor twice, which is as you'd expect I suppose. Both of these plants are really proving the worth of the self-watering planters.

This is the first Carrot plant which has developed it's second leaf and this is now showing how a Carrot leaf looks; that very distinctive serrated edge.

The Parsnip box with several seedlings in it, though none are showing second leaves yet.

This is the smaller of the two Geranium seedlings and, as you can see, it has really started to get bigger and putting on more leaves. Very satisfying to see, and definitely one of my best successes so far this year.

This is the other big success of this year so far.... the single Globe Artichoke seedling which sprouted. It is now sat on a windowsill at the top of the stairs and is putting out it's third set of leaves.

The seed grown Coriander is sat on a front windowsill and gets so much sun I am having to water it twice a day, and every time I go to it the soil is dry again. The left most plant has slightly yellowed leaves but all the others are looking very healthy and happy.

This is the most exciting of the news I have for you in the blog, however. This is one of the Begonia tubers with a sprout showing. Three of the four other tubers have also got some sprouts showing. I am very pleased that these appear to be have settled in and are growing now.

The egg shells with the chitting Potatoes in them; it is too cold for me to plant these (and I have not done the threatened photo-diary of chitting progress you will be happy to hear) so they will stay like this for another week or so before the spring finally springs and I feel happy to put them outside.

Talking of going outside, I've got pictures of my early plantings and, really, evidence that planting so early really hasn't worked for me. Where I was hoping to get an early harvest, it does just look like they showed green and then stopped growing full stop. This is the Lettuce and you could  be forgiven for saying "what Lettuce I don't see anything?"

Even worse, though, is the Onion which is almost invisible among the mold and left-over hay from my aborted attempt to protect from the snow.

Last but not least the Broccoli are still looking the most established but are also struggling a touch to put on a growth spurt as the spring is delayed.

Anyway, there you have it; a much delayed progress report but as you can see anything in the mean time would not really have been that exciting.

Here's to spring arriving and me being able to actually do some more planting and try some more stuff out.

Cheers

Starting to plant potatoes and repotting the Parsnips

Happy weekend everyone :)

At the end of last week the final part of my bumper-order arrived which was my potato planters and some seed potatoes. Yesterday, therefore, I got all excited and decided to get them planted out.

These are the three shiny clean planters just out of the box. And yes that IS sun you can see in the picture. I know, it's been so LONG since we saw it!

Not so clean now, the instructions that I had read up to this point in time told me to fill the bag about one third full and plant some seed potatoes at that depth. So this is what I am doing...

... however after filling two of the three planters to that depth (just about) I recalled my hard-learned-lesson and thought "ooooh - I should be warming this up before planting". So this is one of the large bags of compost next to the radiator and I also brought the other two bags in after taking this picture.

I also read the rest of the instructions and discovered that they recommend that you Chit the Potatoes prior to planting into warmed soil anyway so this brought a resounding stop to my "let's plant some potatoes" plans for this weekend. I have, however, set them a-chitting...

Three egg boxes from the stack I have saved now finally coming in slightly useful.

The Maris Piper seed Potatoes set with the sprouting end upwards in the egg box which is clearly marked for future reference.

Five Rocket Potatoes set out for chitting.

And finally the Charlotte Potatoes wedged in.

These three egg boxes are now sat on a chair in the dining room next to the window as that room is cool and has plenty of light; my effort to take over the entire house with growing stuff is going well :)

So now I just leave these for a while; some websites are suggesting six weeks which just will NOT happen - I'm going to leave it until all of them have some good green showing, and then get them in the planters and outside...

To make up for the disappointment of not being able to plant my Potatoes, and also to make space on the boards next to the radiator, I have decided to take the sprouted Parsnips and put them into deeper soil. This is the first one to be moved.

All the Parsnip seedlings re-potted. I am a bit disappointed with my yield from the Parsnips and Carrots; I have probably only got about 65% seed success. I will not bother with the effort of singly planting these root crops again; next time I do it I will plant as I did last year, into grooves in the soil and using lots of seed up (but I will remember to bird-proof the seedlings too).

So, finally for this super long blog post, I have a couple of updates then I'll let you get on with your day...

First of all the second Birdseye Chilli has sprouted. This picture was taken on Saturday and when I checked this morning it was already about twice as big as this.

The shop bought Coriander is now fully back to life and looking strong and healthy. If you look to the right edge of this picture you will see stubs where leaves have been picked; this is providing us with tasty additions to curries regularly already.

Outside, the Broccoli appears to be putting on a growth spurt and the leaves are starting to take on a less "juvenile" shape. Here's hoping we can be eating this soon too.

By contrast the Onions have not really done much at all; this picture nicely shows the success I have had with each seed as you can clearly make out the V shape I planted the seeds in.

Lastly for outside the Lettuce is still pathetic and small... come on little seedlings, get big so I can eat you!

Finishing with a success story; the seed grown Coriander, which was looking so unhappy in the rubbish planting material the seeds came with, are now really strong looking and potentially I will be ready to give a couple of these away to deserving people. Shout now if you want any?

So, there you have it... I will keep a photo diary of the potatoes and may bore you yet with a day by day chitting progress report when I get round to planting them.

I'm hopeful for another guest blog post shortly too.

Keep growing.