Potatoes showing green plus other outdoor progress

For some very boring reason I won't bother you with I had to go into the back garden today and, as is my wont, I went round the plants to see what progress I can spot and, wouldn't you know, something exceptionally exciting has occurred. As is also my wont, I went and grabbed my camera and have done this blog for you.

So... the big news is (not that it's given away by the blog title but yeah....).....

I have some potatoes showing green!

Here are the pictures as evidence:

The Rocket Potatoes are the ones showing the most so far; there are actually four plants poking through but I couldn't get them all in shot inside the bag. I am quite excited indeed.

The other Potato showing is the Maris Piper, but only this solitary little splash of green is evident in this bag.

The Charlotte Potatoes are not showing at all yet, but hopefully they are very close to breaking through also.

While I was outside I took the opportunity to take pictures of everything else... obviously... so:

The Lettuce is now growing fast and soon will be eatable; I should plant some more really.. I keep saying that don't I....

The Carrot is still outside and does not look like it is doing too badly; this is one experiment I hope has some good results....

The Parsnip is similar to the Carrots; not doing anything amazing but not dead, yet.

Unfortunately in the week I had a bit of a disaster with the Onion; something (probably that damn cat) had knocked the planter over and there was soil all over the ground, with some of the Onion spikes out too; I was able to save it and stand it upright and this, taken just now and a few days after that discovery, appears to show that they have survived. It is also evidence of just how well they have started growing.

The Broccoli continues to be the outside plant which is doing the best and is now really thriving.

The Shop bought Chives which  I planted out is doing ok; well it's not dead yet at least.

A similar story with the shop bought Coriander which had been picked to death to feed me... hopefully it will settle in and do what my old one did at the old house.

Last but not least, the very unhappy looking Foxglove. The same day I went out and found that the Onions had been spread over the yard I noticed that it looked like this had been dug up by something... I'm suspecting the same cat (which woke me up in the night last night howling; you can guess it's not my favourite creature right now huh)... I have re-bedded it in and it does look a little happier now but yeah; maybe this should have been planted outside later and not coddled in the heated propagator.

Anyway, there you have my update.

Thanks for reading

Keep Growing your Own

Close up of progress around the garden

A mainly picture led post today, with close ups of everything I am growing.

Thyme seedlings

A couple of Sage seedlings

Basil!

Tomato forest

Parsley tree :)

Corriander flowers

Chives

Lettuce seedlings

Hanging basket tomatoes; doing very well

Little apples developing :)

Stuttgarter Giant Onions

Karmen Red Onions

Red Sun Shallots

Casablanca Garlic

Parsnips

Carrots; most of the seedlings have been taken by birds; cover these with netting in future!

Main bed tomatoes

Sweetcorn

Cabbages (ready for thinning)

Peppers, just prior to being potted out into 3" pots

So there you have it.  This blog post was started last week but, while I was in the middle of typing it up, my laptop completely died and I have only just managed to recover the pictures and get another laptop working so I could complete it. So these pics are actually a few days old and, now, we have a seedling appearing for the Rosemary so we have a 100% record on the Kitchen Windowsill Herb Garden!

Right I'm off now to thin the Cabbage, protect the remaining Carrots from marrauding birds, and generally weed and earth up and maintain, all the stuff that one has to do to keep the garden growing how you want it to (cos you know it'll grow without you, but all the food would be swamped by weeds)

I'll blog again soon.

I have some plant pots (and a progress update)

I have been freecycling (as I think I've mentioned before) and today I made my second collection of plant pots from the nice lady in central Blackpool.

I now have a nice collection of plant pots ready for filling up and putting my Tomato Plants in.

Well when I say a "nice" collection:

I had to wash each one of those; I got SOAKED to the skin; good thing the sun has come back :)

So I'm going to be filling each of these up with soil and planting tomato plants in them; I will be taking requests from people for tomato plants via this site so please keep an eye on it. When I know how many I have to give away I'll put a blog post for y'all to say how many you want.

Anyway, the rest of the garden is going pretty well; the ONLY things not growing are the parnsips, carrots and mint (though I'm hopeful they will start in the next couple of weeks - I really did expect the parsnips and carrots to have started to show green by now) but everything else looking great so, without any further ado, status photographs below:

Chillis: not as good as Jon's at work are (apparently, though he's refused to take any pictures to prove how impressive his are) but they're still alive and growing, though slowly.

Blossom has all gone from the Apple tree, but it is looking very healthy and happy :)

The Stuttgarter Giant Onions; nicely weeded today

The Karmen Red Onions, again nicely weeded

The Red Sun Shallots. These are looking so bountiful :)

The Casablanca Garlic. I'm starting to consider how I'll know when to harvest these things :)

Just showing; the cabbage :) this is very exciting for me indeed!

The potatoes in the main bed; I've lots count now of the number of plants that are growing.

Potatoes in the old tyres. These are growing great guns, since I put the second tyre on they have accelerated dramatically.

The herb garden; in all seriousness if anyone wants some Parsley (who lives near Blackpool) just ask and you can come get some :)

The Sweetcorn is coming on really well; only 2 days after the first green started showing they are already a good inch and a half long.

The tomatoes. I have SO many of these coming on!!! I've been taking daily photographs of their progress and will post a seven day progress blog tomorrow.

So, there you have it. Things is growing and growing well.

The potatoes are finally showing, plus other progress

Well the last few days I have been in Prague on a stag do so have had to leave my seedlings in the care of my girlfriend.

While I was going around looking like this:

My tomato plants were doing this:

I have over 50 seedlings that have started growing in there! I have no idea what I'm going to do if they all grow into full sized plants... I'm not sure my garden is big enough.

Anyway, I split them up into seed trays (ran out of trays and potting compost so this will have to be finished tomorrow when I have more trays and compost) as shown below:

In the next couple of weeks I will have to rehouse them again into bigger pots. 50 bigger pots.

Anyway, the rest of the garden has been going great guns :) and last up there is a very exciting piece of news (which you'll already know if you've read the post title)

The herb garden. The parsley and the chives are exploding!

The apple tree, with blossoms finally open.

Close up of the apple blossoms. Stunning!

The recovered chillis.Only one seedling has died! outstanding result

The Stuttgarter Giant Onions; a few additional plants have started coming up since the last update so it looks like we have a success here too

Karmen Red Onions.

Red Sun Shallots

Casablanca Garlic

And now for the big surprise, the best news of the day so far!!!!!.........

Potatoes showing some green in the old car tyre planter.

Close up of a potato in the vegetable bed.

Not many have come through, but you can see about 4 or 5 sprouting if you look REALLY closely.

So, growing successfully now we have:

Tomatoes, Chillis, 2 types of Onion, Shallots, Garlic, an apple tree and FINALLY Potatoes!  Still to show green are Parsnips and Carrots and still to be planted; Cabbage and Mushrooms.

Now I'm going to go and recover from that stag do....