Some flowers, some Tomatoes and a chill or two

It has been so long since I did a general update that I was going to do one anyway today however, as I was walking around looking for pictures to take I noticed that there was actually quite a selection of interest and excitement to tell you about.

So, as I have a good chunk of pictures for you this time, I'll crack straight on with it.

There are now two large blooms on the large Geranium on the front windowsill, which is a beautiful thing to behold.

The same plant has put up another couple of flower heads and these, from early signs, look to be yellow. I am looking forward to them both being in bloom together. I haven't got a photograph but the other Geranium, that which had fungus growing around its roots, has now started to put up a flower stalk so thank you for the advice from various people to stop watering it so much :)

One of the Crossley Special Chillis is turning orange. I don't know if this picture really captures quite how luminescent it is.

You may be able to see slightly better in this one, contrasting the top Chilli to the lower larger bright red one.

This is the cluster of Moneymaker Tomatoes from which I took the diseased one (that was caused by a lack of water during germination, apparently) And you can see that a small fruit is already growing to replace it. There are loads of little clusters of fruits on this plant now, only one red, but hopefully a harvest of sorts will be possible.

The Citrus tree is still healthy and has one fruit on it, however its main benefit is from the blossom which smells amazing as you come up the stairs. I love it!

One of the Begonia flowers has come out really nice and orange. Lovely.

Most of the Begonia flowers are yellow, however, and profuse as you can see from this picture

This is the one and only fruit on the Gardener's Delight Tomato. I hope I get more than this.

The plant itself is very tall and growing all the time - it goes right to the top of this picture.

Most excitingly of all for this update I have the first of my Ghost Chilli fruits! It looks like I'll be getting some more too.

Potting up was a very good idea as you can see from this, the plant is flourishing again and a lesson learned here is to give far more room to Chili plants than I have been; even when small they seem to limit their growth based on a smaller pot.

So, there you have it. I am quite distracted by the progress I am making towards emigration however I am not taking my eye of the ball and, other than the progress shown here, it looks like my carrots and parsnips are doing well. I will have to check the carrots out soon I think.

Keep growing people

Mint flowers, Mushrooms and Tomato update

Happy Sunday morning people.

Today I have another brief post; not much seems to be happening to update you on at the moment and I'm also totally focused on my plans for emigrating to do this full time.

I had some some very useful comments on a previous blog which is what prompted this blog. First of all, the flowers on the Mint, and then the diseased Tomato.

Mint flowers really are gorgeous... and they smell divine too. Click on the picture to enlarge it and see the details. I used scissors to cut these off as my secaturs are no where to be found. Hopefully now all the energy will go into essential oils and growing the rest of the plant, and not into making these beautiful blooms.

While I was by the Mint I noticed these little fellas which have appeared in the last day or two at the base of the Geranium. I'm leaving them for now, to see what happens. This Geranium has not flowered yet, I'm not sure if the mushrooms are indicative of a reason.

The other helpful advice was this link to a page about diseases, and specifically ones effecting Tomatoes. I am not 100% sure if this Tomato is suffering from Anthracnose or Sour Rot. Either way I had to remove it from the vine.

Here is a detail of the removed Tomato.

And here is another one. I may chose to keep this and see what happens now; obviously away from the other plants to avoid contamination.

It's not all bad news on the Tomato front though; there are quite a lot of clusters of fruit like this which have appeared towards the top of the plants. Hopefully I will get a good harvest from these yet.

So there you are, brief but sweet.

Thanks for reading.

And keep gardening

Eating a Tomato

Today is a quick update as something exciting happened yesterday.

The first picked Tomato of the year (not that there are many others to pick) but this one smelled GORGEOUS and is lovely and shiny and red.

The home grown Tomato sitting on a gorgeous cheese toastie. It was absolutely lovely and tasted great, if it was a little sloppy.

So there you are, that was very exciting indeed.

For the progress report I have a couple of cool things to show you.

A load of Crossley Special Chillis. We have already started eating these and they are really nice; hot but tasty. Everything home grown always tastes better.

The Geranium flower pictured a week or so ago has now flowered fully, and another shoot has appeared next to it ready to flower in its own right.

So there you are, that is my update for today.

Keep growing.

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

Flowers of Spring

Today I have a short but very sweet update for you.

With Spring (or is it Autumn) finally upon us I have some very nice flowers on a couple of my plants which I thought you may be interested in seeing.

The Citrus flowers which I spotted and posts a photograph about have now started to open and are looking very pretty; there are a LOT of flowers but this was the best picture I took.

The Citrus Tree is still growing well as you can see; with lots of new growth. I am tempted to prune this down at some point.

The seed grown Coriander has probably not been watered enough as it has started putting out tiny little white flowers on the top of each plant.

Well, that was the flower excitement... now for some more normal update pictures:

The late starting Gardeners Delight Tomato seedling has put out more leaves and is growing fast. Hopefully it will catch up and produce some fruit. There is still nothing at all from the other seed yet.

Both Geranium plants are looking very similar; they have very large leaves now which are soaking up whatever sun comes to them on the windowsill.

The five Begonia plants are all enjoying the new experience of having sun on them.

The Birdseye Chilli seedlings are really weedy and pathetic looking still. I really am not sure why they are so sickly still but I have moved them to a more sunny location so fingers firmly crossed.

Last but not least the Globe Artichoke is now really quite tall and seems to be thriving. Each new leaf seems more spiky than the last. I am quite excited about what will happen next and when the "globe" part of its name will become apparent.

Anyway, that's all for today. Thanks for reading and remember to keep growing your own

Coriander and Mint progress, garden plan and ideas for the future

So, it looks like winter may be arriving, now we are into January. This morning we woke to a slight frosting of snow, no more than a couple of millimeters but still, this is going to be an interesting period where I find out how successfully the Cloches I have put over the winter growth will enable them to survive a cold snap.

Inside the house, where the central heating is helping out, I have seen a sudden burst of growth from my coriander I am growing from seed, and my supermarket bought mint plant has also started flourishing, causing an emergency re-potting and staking as it fell over in it's tiny shop pot.

The coriander looking quite healthy, just over 2 weeks since first sight of shoots. They are sitting on a 50p plate bought from the second hand shop next door - classy :)

The mint, still looking slightly lop-sided but better than it was. Again sitting on a 50p plate from next door and yes, on the bin in the background you can see our light dusting of snow.

I have nearly finished my plan of the garden, currently without any new growth in it; it is just to help me plan where things will go etc. As you can see, it is a much smaller space than I used to have; each square is one metre

My attempt to hang the thai boxing punch/kick bag failed, however, as the bricks our house is made from appear to have been fashioned from titanium! My hammer drill made about a 2mm dent, and then the chuck slipped. No chance. Oh well.

At least that will leave me more space for growing stuff ;)

Another awesome thing, I got some more cool pressies at Christmas which I will be making a start on this week I think. The cup is most useful as I am clumsy (apparently) and it won't break if I kick it across the garden :D

This little watering can comes with lavender - I cannot wait for this to be flowering - I love the smell of lavender!

A nice pair of small pots, with (as you can see) orgenao and basil to attempt to grow.

Yes, I AM the head gardener, and don't you forget it ;)

Finally, this year I am not only going to be growing food, but also picking out some flowering plants that I can grow which will encourage bees and butterflies to visit. My current thoughts are:

• Globe Artichoke (as I can also try eating these)
• Foxglove (because they are gorgeous)
• Thistles (because surely they are easy to grow!)
• Honeysuckle (well, one's got to try!)
• Geranium
• Forget-me-not

I am going to try and put a load of hanging baskets up (I can drill into the mortar, and avoid the diamond-hard bricks) and also plant in the lower light areas below the trees.

Anyway, I thought this was going to be a short update but it doesn't appear to have been!

Cheers

Flowers on my Chilli Plant

I have been thinking and the last few blog posts have been more suitable for a Photography blog rather than a Gardening blog, and I want this to be a Gardening blog.  So I have created myself a flickr account and will put all my photographs on there, with this blog refocusing on how things are growing.

Please do go across to my flickr and be impressed by my pictures if you want; I've put a link in my toolbox on the right --->

Anyway, back to the business of this blog.

Flowers on my chilli plant

The Chilli plant on the bedroom window sill is the first to flower! There are three flowers open, and a number of other buds looking like they are ready to go for it.

On inspection the three downstairs in the patio window are also looking very close to bursting open too.  This is very exciting as my mate at work has been eating his chillis for several weeks now.

This fellow has been a regular visitor to my garden, and is fearless, allowing me to get very close before even looking up. This was taken with a zoom lens, though, as he was happily pecking away and cleaning himself.

This is why I chase cats out of my garden; they kill birds.

Evidence of another visitor. I have a family of Blackbirds living in the trees who often hop around the patio and grass.

So, that is it for today.

Tomato Flowers (and maintenance)

I've been a bit lax on this blog recently as the motivation to do it has been lacking due to things happening in my life...

But I have still been doing bits and bobs around the garden and maintaining the plants (which are growing well).

I'll try and get a full photo shoot done this evening (if it isn't pissing it down) and update later with how everything is coming on, but this post is a quick update about the tomato plants.

They FINALLY have flowers!

The plants outside are behind the ones inside (obviously) so this post is entirely about the inside plants.

There are about 10-15 of these flowers now across the 4 plants that have them showing :)

Another thing that I have been doing is pruning the plants; removing the suckers that grow in the crooks between main trunk and branch.

You do this to keep the main trunk strong, avoid nutrients, water and sugar being diverted away from the fruits, and to stop the plant becoming "bushy".

Here is an example of a sucker that has grown on one of the plants.

I have pinched it off as close to the stem as possible.

This will now go into the compost.

I have had reports from some people who I gave plants to that they are seeing fruit developing already; how jealous am I! Fingers crossed the sun comes out and these plants accelerate again and produce a good crop of tasty tomatoes.