Bank Holiday Excitement

Happy bank holiday people.

And what a lovely day it has been. Who says bank holidays are always rainy and horrible.

The sun shining in through my bedroom window this morning encouraged me to get loads done today and, as such, this blog post is super long so I'll crack on with it without any more fuss.

First task for the day was to plant out the shop bought Coriander and Chives, and the Foxgloves.

It's the first outing of the year for the All Steel Spade, here after the planting hole (slightly too deep as it happened) for the Chives has been dug.

The Chives plant (not looking very healthy but worth planting out) watered in to its new home.

I dug a shallow trench for the Foxglove and put potting compost into the bottom of it.

The Foxglove nestled into the trench and with dirt tamped down around it.

Digging the planting hole for the Coriander with the All Steel Spade

The Coriander watered in and tamped down with dirt.

The three plants bedded down into the soil; you will notice that I have deliberately not taken all the weeds away; this is down to inspiration from The One Straw Revolution which is a book I got for my birthday and have read through without any pause; I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The lettuce are starting to actually look like lettuce now.

This is the broccoli, almost unrecognisable from the tiny little plants that were all that were there before the sun finally came out and they have exploded into life.

The Onion spikes are still tiny but they are growing again I think.

Today I also moved the Carrots and the Parsnips outside (I have put a cover over each to stop birds taking the seedlings) so hopefully these will now also start to thrive.

A panoramic photo of the growing things in the back garden. From left to right: Coriander, Foxglove and Chives in the bed, Broccoli and Onions in the terracotta pots, Parsnip and Carrot in the square white, Lettuce in the round white and finally the Potatoes in the green planters.

So, that is the update and planting from outside. The next thing I achieved today was last week I saved some seeds from a Pepper I used whilst cooking.

The Pepper seeds saved from cooking last week drying on kitchen paper.

All the seeds separated from the casings and ready for planting or storing.

I've used my last empty TicTac box for the Peppers.

I have planted four Pepper seeds into my empty Heated Propagator trays.

The Heated Propagator is now on the bedroom windowsill which gets more direct sunlight than the dining room window which is effected by the kitchen extension blocking the sun.

The two Ghost Chilli seedlings in the sun; I am sure that with the increase in direct light these will have a growth spurt.

The Birsdeye Chillis have now started showing some second and third growth and as such are looking much healthier than they were a few weeks ago.

Three Crossley Special chillis in a location which gets solid afternoon sun and demonstrating just how much they enjoy the sun; shortly these will have to be staked soon to stop them collapsing as they have started to do so.

One of the most exciting updates is the Citrus plant has suddenly got LOADS of flowers on it; fingers crossed all of these will turn into fruit. I am expecting to have to self-pollinate, but maybe I'll just keep opening the window next to it.

This is the middle Begonia seedling, and I picked this picture to show the tiny hairs on the stalk .

All five Begonia seedlings with two very well established at the edges, and the others much smaller; the picture above is of the seedling in the middle of this tray.

This detail of the Bromeliad shows how the red leaves start brightest at the centre, and as they spread out and down they start to lose their red colouration and turn green (look to the bottom left of the picture).

The Gardeners Delight seedling which has finally sprouted has already put out second growth; I think this is going to sprint now to catch up with its Moneymaker brothers.

And here is one of its brothers; the Moneymaker Tomato.

Lastly for this monster length update this is the Dining Room window sill now; with (left to right) Moneymaker Tomato, Geranium, Gardeners Delight Tomato (not sprouted yet), another Geranium and finally the Gardeners Delight Tomato which has sprouted.

So, there you are; it's that exciting time of year when everything starts growing and gardeners get outside after the freezing cold of our extended winter.

I did take some other pictures of the trees in the garden showing shoots but thought you'd probably have enough pictures to look at here.

Keep growing, keep reading.

Planting Potatoes and other progress

It's been a frustrating couple of weeks, every time you think that the weather is warming up a bit the wind and rain and snow and hail comes back and I think "actually I'm not going to risk putting plants out yet".

Today I finally felt ready and so I have planted out the three different varieties of potatoes into planters outside.

The Rocket Potatoes have chitted the best of all the varieties; I'm planting five seed Potatoes per planter bag.

I have put one layer of Potatoes in about 5" of compost; this is one of the Rocket variety.

This first layer consists of three seed Potatoes, on top of which I put another 3-4" of soil, another two seed Potatoes and then another 3" of compost.

The Maris Pipers have also chitted well and are here ready for planting out.

I've planted the Maris Pipers in the same configuration; this is the first layer of three seed Potatoes.

Finally for the Potato planting the Charlottes....

...... and the first layer as per the others.

Once I had planted all the Potatoes I watered them in well and then positioned the planters thus:

The three Potato planters set next to the Lettuce pot.

So that is almost the last of my planting done for the year; I'm going to run out of space soon. Now for some more regular updates....

Seeing as I was outside I'll start this update from there, and show how the Lettuce has finally started to develop and look like more than a tiny little leaf; I will plant my next round of Lettuce soon I think.

I did take a picture of the Onion but it really did not come out; they have not changed anyway from the last photograph I put on here anyway.

Similarly to the Lettuce, the Broccoli is also accelerating nicely now the winter has (mainly) left us.

The self watering planters have really proven their worth with the Moneymaker Tomatoes; they are both flourishing; this is the one which hasn't been dropped on the floor (yet)

And this is the one which has been dropped. As you can see they are both getting quite big and may be getting close to needing repotting; at least I've not accidentally grown 100 seedlings this year huh...

Both Geraniums are looking very similar, no sign of flowers but some good sized leaves and looking incredibly healthy.

The tangle of Foxgloves have continued to do well since I realised I needed to water them more often than the other seedlings; I have worked out where I'm going to plant these out and am just waiting for the correct time to do so.

The Birdseye Chilli, which took so long to germinate, is still not really blowing my socks off with it's development and you can see from this detail picture that it isn't looking very healthy at all... I'm going to have to keep a close eye on them.

The other Birsdeye is slightly more developed but still looking sickly; I do hope they strengthen maybe with a little more sun we're getting now.

By contrast the Ghost Chillis are looking great; still very short but with strong looking wide leaves.

All six of the Crossley Special chillis are developing well; this picture is taken just before I watered them for the day and you can see it is slightly wilted; by the time I am writing this blog up it has fully extended itself out again.

The newest addition to my collection, the Bromeliad, is a delight. I am so happy we bought it. I do my watering every morning during the week and get to appreciate its bright colours every day, which is great. If you look closely on this picture you can see I've just watered it and the water is settled in the leaves and flower.

The Globe Artichoke is still growing well, sending out spiky leaves and developing fast... Sadly I think the cat which I caught sat on it has done something strange to one of the leaves (at the back on this pic, and below in detail).

The other leaves all feel moist and pliable; this leaf is completely dry and you can see it is patchy; there is cat fur stuck to it too. Any advice/suggestions would be gratefully received regarding this...

The five pots of seed grown Coriander have started shooting up recently; they are thirsty plants at the moment (this is the hottest windowsill in the house as well) but they are all looking very healthy indeed (unlike the poor shop bought one which is very sad looking, though not included as a photo in this update).

This is the first Begonia which sprouted and it has made incredible progress in the last week or so; such a pretty looking plant too.

By contrast this is the Begonia with the least growth which has only just started sprouting. The other plants are at varying stages between this one and the first.

So, that is the full update for this week; I think you can agree that there is some good progress starting to show, though it's so late in the year I would have hoped to be a little further along to be honest.

Trees locally still haven't got any leaves on them, and looking out my window now you'd think it was either November or February; it really is a late spring this year.

Anyway, keep growing, please do get in touch with your progress as I'm always interested to hear about what other people are doing.

Cheers