First sight of Birdseye Chillis and other things

So a brief update today, just focused on some progress I spotted which inspired me to take photographs of various green growing things.

I'll get straight into it...

Leading off with the most exciting of the progress, the thing which inspired this whole post. This is the first Birdseye Chilli seedling which appeared literally over night (as they do) and is already 15mm tall. Now I am going to be checking every day for sight of the other seedling.

This is one of the Carrot seedlings I transplanted thinking it was dead. As you can see I was wrong. The white stain is the ring caused by the toilet roll which is now fully buried and rotting away.

The Parsnips are still in their toilet rolls and are growing well; think these will be a transplant job for the weekend.

The two Ghost Chilli seedlings are looking well established and are showing second growth now; from memory this presages a bit of a growth spurt so maybe soon I will have to put these into a larger container too.

The Globe Artichoke seedling which appeared so quickly has continued it's super fast growth and is now almost too big for the heated propagator tray. It's mate still hasn't put in an appearance though.

I'm still waiting for some advice about the Foxglove seedlings, which it seems to me have looked pretty much like this for weeks now. Should I be moving these into a bigger space? Or wait a little longer....?

The Moneymaker Tomato seedling still only with primary leaves but looking strong. The Gardeners Choice have not yet put in an appearance, but the seedling I threw on the floor (not pictured) is actually still alive and well.

The large Geranium seedling which is growing again and slowly shedding the dirt I scattered on it by accident. The smaller seedling is still only in early stages and does not show the leaf style of a Geranium yet.

Last but by no means least this is one of the Crossley Special Chillis. These are now really starting to look strong and healthy and I have a lot of hope for a good crop this year. You can see that it is really starting to put leaves on now and these, as commented earlier, really help to turbo-charge the growth of the plant.

So that is it for now; just a quick update around a few of the seedlings.

I will do a full update at the weekend if I get time.

Keep planting and growing.

*** EDIT ****

I almost forgot, I have a little update on the shop bought Coriander and Chives. If you remember I brought them in because of the snow and they were looking very unwell indeed.

While not looking incredibly healthy I think I can comfortably say the Coriander has survived.

While the Chives are not looking quite as good I think they may survive also.

Thanks to everyone who said encouraging things to me about these plants, including but not limited to my Uncle Alan.

They made it!

Planting Begonia tubers

At the weekend another part of my huge seed/tuber order arrived so Sunday morning I decided to plant them out. The packet said "plant immediately" which put a bit of fear in my mind as to what would happen if I didn't.

I am not sure if, post growth, I will be able to re-harvest the tubers and take them with me to my full time homesteading destination (any advice welcome) but hey, if they will die if I don't plant them now I'm not going to put them in my seed-bank to take with me because that would just be a waste.

Anyway, following on from my so-recently learned lesson my first task was to bring in and warm up some compost.

The five three inch plant pots brought in and filled with compost and sat next to the radiator, alongside the Carrots and Parsnips and Geranium seedlings. This surely is final proof that yes, I do learn from my mistakes.

I have never bought tubers before and this is the bag which they came in; it was a very lightweight material and had lots of holes in it to keep the tubers dry and aerated.

This is a Begonia tuber. Yes, I know what it looks like but trust me; it is. I am holding it "hollow side up" which, apparently, is the way you plant them also.

The method of planting which the instruction leaflet said (yes, I know, I read the instructions... How can I ever look my dad in the eye again!) said to put it on the compost hollow side up, carefully push under the surface, and water thoroughly, making sure however to not let water pool in the hollow. So that is what I did...

... I didn't get any pictures of that part of the process so you will just have to trust me when I tell you that this is a picture of the previously shown pots, post compost warming, with a tuber in each one, carefully pushed in and watered without allowing water to collect, yes you guessed it, in the hollow on the tuber.

Bear in mind that I brought the compost in at about 8am on the Sunday morning and then did this planting at about 11pm so this gives an idea that you can decide to plant something in the morning, and have warm enough compost in the evening, so long as you have your heating on.

Finally a couple of pictures to show that the heating of the compost really does work. This is a picture of two Carrot seedlings still standing up strong and tall and not wilting in the slightest. The mildew appears to have reduced also, though the soil still has some moisture in it. This is, I think, a success so far.

The Geranium seedling is also still looking just as it did prior to re-potting, another successful move operation. I did accidentally scatter some compost on the leaves while moving it but I don't think it will stay on there for long when the plant continues to grow.


Anyway, there you are; some more plants ready to start obsessively watching for progress, and some more proof that yes, you really should be aware of the temperature of your compost when moving seedlings from propagator to medium pot.

Cheers

Learning my lesson and repotting my carrots

So as promised yesterday the blog post today is a demonstration that yes, I CAN learn from previous mistakes.

If you remember when I re-potted the Crossley Specials they started to droop pretty much immediately and I worked out that this was because of the temperature of the compost I was moving them into.

Well, I have decided (because of the mildew in the Carrots) to re-pot the carrots (and originally I was going to do the Parsnips but I have ultimately decided against this)...

On Saturday I gathered together the containers that I am planning on putting the Carrots and Parsnips into. The terracotta pot at the back was ultimately discarded.

I have filled each container with compost to quite a good depth as you can see.

I am also going to re-pot the Geraniums and I have decided to use these two pots for this; once again, filled with very cold potting compost.

And this is the evidence of me learning; I have brought the containers in and put them next to a radiator so that they lose the dead cold from this horrible weather we are having at the moment and hopefully the seedlings will thrive a bit better immediately.

*over night break*

This morning I was up early and managed to recover most of the toilet rolls with Carrot seedlings in them. This is the first one which I set into the new compost. Fingers crossed the mildew goes soon. The compost inside the toilet roll was totally sodden though.

I have filled up one of the containers completely, and the other one has a few seedlings in. I am finding that growing Carrots is much harder than I expected - having lost all of them last year. My fingers are, however, firmly crossed.

The Geraniums are very much ready for re-potting; well at least one of them is really well grown and the other is a little smaller but still ready for re-potting I think.

The larger of the two Geranium seedlings safely re-potted into the dirty white flower pot and, as you can see, has been watered in slightly.

So, there you are - I can learn from my mistakes (and I will report back on how healthy the seedlings are when I next post a blog).

Keep planting.

Removing Seed Casings

This post follows on nicely from the one yesterday. You will remember that, when I was taking my update photographs I noticed that the Carrots, which are growing well, had a large proportion of seedlings with the seed casing attached to the plant and preventing the leaves from spreading.

This is a common problem and is addressed in many places on the web but I thought I would quickly post a blog about what I did about it just now.

This is one of the Carrot seedlings with the seed casing still trapping the young leaves.

A lot of blogs suggest moistening the casing which will allow it to be removed easier and, to be fair, I think that when I come to the next round of carrying out this task I will do that. This time, as I was impatient, I tried it without using moisture.

I got a Stanley knife, and a pair of needle-nose pliers, and very carefully and gently loosened the casing, being sure to not uproot the seedling. With a minute or so per seedling of effort I was able to detach the casing without causing any tearing of the leaf.

Just on the very tip of these needle-nose pliers you can see the removed casing.

This is what a seedling should look like, with no casing trapping the leaves and able to grow healthily and well.

Anyway, that's a short update for you today.

Keep Growing.

Lots of progress

So it is the weekend again and it is time for the latest update photographs from around my house.

I have a LOT of photographs so I will crack on now without any further delay.

The mint plant really flourishing. This is left behind the curtains all the time so it has lots of light, and I am watering it about once or twice a week at most.

The Moneymaker Tomato self watering planter. This is the one which I massively over-watered originally however the water has drained through into the reservoir and the soil is now the correct moistness; I think this idea is one of my favourites that I have ever come across.

Gardeners Delight and another Moneymaker Tomato. The self watering planters are really proving themselves.

The two Ghost Chilli Seedlings. I think these need another week or so in the heated propagator however they are looking very strong and healthy.

The biggest of the Crossley Special chillis, showing good second growth. The other five plants are all coming on and I am starting to think it is time to re-pot these into their final homes (which will also free up the heated propagator to allow me to plant other things).

The cloud of Foxglove seedlings seen through the cover of the heated propagator.

At last the second Geranium seedling has popped through. The first one is definitely ready for re-potting.

If you close one eye, squint the other and stand on your head you may be able to see the TINY seedling in this photograph (taken with a zoom lens standing on a chair as I do not have a macro lens... yet) which I think is a Echiniops Ruthenicus seedling. There are two of these showing but the other one is even harder to see!

The tray of Parsnips growing in their toilet rolls. I have been ensuring that there is standing water in the tray at all times.

The only Parsnip seedling so far showing and, as with the Echinops Ruthenicus seedlings, very very tiny.

The tray of Carrot seedlings (and yes, there are a number of seedlings) also with standing water to act as a kind of self watering system.

A single carrot seedling striving to the sky and with it's first little leaves opening nicely.

This carrot seedling has still got it's seed casing around it and stopping the small leaves from opening. This is a problem and I will blog tomorrow about removing it.

The shop bought Chive plant outside and still alive. It is looking a little unhappy, but is still growing. I think this needs moving to a more sunny position.

The shop bought Coriander which has bedded itself in well in it's new home. This, unlike the Chives, looks like it is OK with not being in direct sunlight.

A tiny Lettuce seedling, shown next to some hay and a chunk of moss.

Onion spikes luxuriating in the sun, but not really growing much.

The Broccoli, still the most advanced of my early outdoor plantings, but not really growing much either.

Just to do a quick summary, these early plantings have already been overtaken by the seedlings (like the Carrots) which were planted two months later. I think they have not really been a great success. I am hopeful, though, that with the advent of spring (and yesterday was 1st March) they may suddenly explode into growth and I will get a good early harvest. To test this I will be planting the same seeds again outside in the next month to see if the next seeds overtake the winter planted seeds.

Three oranges growing on the Citrus Tree.

The Citrus Tree (though I'm not sure it is large enough to really warrant the label "tree").

The tray of seed grown coriander which is another success; all the seedlings have reestablished themselves and are growing again.

One of the seed grown Coriander seedlings (which had previously been one of the worst looking seedlings) now showing how much it has grown.

Right, that is my update; short I know :D

It is great to see so much success and I have another blog ready for you tomorrow, and may even get round to doing some of my re-potting today also (which of course I will also photograph and blog).

Keep growing.