While I do nothing, nature grows

As promised I have been out and taken pictures of everything that is growing. Things are looking very fruitful.

So, without any further ado, please see below.

The Thyme

Sage

Basil

Sadly, the Rosemary started to break through, but didn't shed it's seed wrapper and I didn't spot it in time to try and save it.

Flowers on the shop bought Thai Corriander (I think it's that anyway)

The peppers, still in small pots inside (probably ready for upgrading soon)

Indoor chilli plants; the ones outdoors are rather less impressive looking!

Indoor tomato plants; these are growing very impressively and have flowers on them already

One of the hanging basket tomato plants, sadly the main trunk appears quite badly damaged, following the storms of the last few weeks

The other tomato plant in the same hanging basket as above. Looking much more healthy.

Herb garden, looking slightly battered from the storms, but still fruitful. The parsley was thinned in a drastic manner by hillbilly. In the background are lots more tomato plants, all of them more squat with very thick trunks having survived the weather.

Apples :) in total there are 16 fruits on the tree

Stuttgarter Giant Onions

Karmen Red Onions

Red Sun Shallots (with major weeding required behind the plot)

Casablanca Garlic

A healthy looking row of parsnips

The single surviving tomato plant

Cabbages growing well under netting

Lettuces looking promising too

The main bed potatoes, in need of earthing up AGAIN

A potato flower; I didn't even know they had flowers!

Last but not least the sweetcorn bed.

So there you have it, not much difference to the last time I updated, but it is still interesting to see how things are growing.

Plenty of weeding is required over the weekend, with clearing behind the beds almost as important as picking out the invaders which are springing up faster and faster all the time.

Thanks for the comments and interaction via twitter and facebook; I do love just how many people out there are attempting to grow their own and are sharing their experiences to assist other people.

A basic status update

So today is just a simple current state of affairs of everything that I am growing. I have just taken these following a quick half hour blast of weeding around the garden over my lunch break. Someone today said that gardening takes away my anger; I think that is a very accurate description of the calming effect just grubbing around and taking little weeds out of the soil with your bare hands. Epic relaxation.

Stuttgarter Giant Onions

Karmen Red Onions

Red Sun Shallots

Casablanca Garlic

Parsnips (oh yeah!!)

Parnsips close up :) definitely coming through well now they are under plastic

Carrots (another ooohhhh yeahhh!!)

Carrots close up :)

Cabbage seedlings through the netting

Main bed potatoes

Old tyre potatoes (due for another tyre now I think)

(left to right) parsley, chives, corriander.

Chillis

Sweetcorn

Tomatoes

Peppers

The only two plants not showing any green yet is the mint (which is a major surprise) and the spring onions.

This weekend I am going to be splitting the tomato plants out into separate pots ready for offering around to people.  A hint provided me by @Fat_Jacques "put marigolds among tomatoes, [it] helps tomatoes with aphids and other pests."

As always, I am really keen for any advice like this, as a first time gardener, so please do not hesitate to provide advice on the comments here, or through my twitter account (@rhmgroo)

A week of tomato plant growth (and netting for the lettuce seedlings)

I decided last week to take photographs every day of my tomato plants, to record the change and boy am I glad I did it.

They have grown far more than I expected and I think these pictures are very interesting. I will continue doing this I think through the entire process; that blog post will be fun to read now, won't it ;)

Anyway, without further ado:

Day 1: most seedlings only have 2 leaves, some have 4

Day 2: not much change, when are they going to start GROWING?

Day 3: hmmm, most plants now have 4 leaves... here they come...

Day 4: some plants now getting up to 6 leaves and we're seeing some differentiation between the stronger seedlings

Day 5: starting to see plants with 8 leaves... exciting.

Day 6: Again, not much change over this day - are they slowing down?

Day 7: Yeah... they're looking much better than from day 1, but seem to be slowing their growth.

Day 8: oh WOW they appear to have just bust off again - just amazing progress; that is what a bit of sun can do :)

Day 9: yep, these tomatoes are now really going for it. Shortly I'll have to take them out of the propagation trays into proper pots (and then you will be able to ask me for plants if you want some..)

A close up of one of the plants taken about 2 mins ago; looking really strong.

So there you are, our tomatoes are going great guns!

Onto the other little update; I have been seeing pigeons pecking at my vegetable bed which has the cabbage seedlings in it and I started getting worried that they were taking the seedlings so I have put some netting over the whole bed.

Starting to peg the netting out, using the line-markers as supports.

All done and pegged out.

Looking through the netted area.

Now the problem is going to be getting in to weed ;)