Potting up the Ghost Chilli

I am aware that I have been a little slow recently posting to this blog; this is because I have been focusing a lot of attention on the emigration blog (which you can find here) however that does not mean that I have been ignoring the growing things which are in my care right now. The Potatoes outside are still looking pretty healthy, though I do truly wish I had used the trick on this blog post and not used those stupid green bags... Oh well.

Anyway, the blog today is about something which (as per usual) I had been putting off but decided I couldn't put off for any longer. The Ghost Chilli has been growing well but it has stalled a bit and I am pretty sure this is because the pot it is in is not big enough. So I am going to put it into a bigger pot.

The Ghost Chilli has finally started with some flowers, as you can see here. Maybe I will get a harvest from it after all.

As you can see from this, however, the pot it is in is very small for the plant and I am pretty sure it would enjoy growing a little taller, with a few more shoots for flowers to grow on, to improve the yield.

You can see how it has outgrown the pot with the tangle of roots which have grown through bottom.

I was careful to untangle these roots, and not break them, before pulling the plant out of the pot; there is no need to damage anything if you are careful and by not damaging the roots I am ensure the plant does not suffer as much shock.

I have prepared a larger plant pot (actually, this one was too small, once I had put the plant in, and so i upgraded it again but shhh don't tell anyone)

This is the Ghost Chilli in its final large pot (not the one in the previous picture) with the pot it had been removed from next to it; hopefully now I'll really see some extra growth.

So there we have it... fingers crossed I'll get a few chillis from those flowers, and some more flowers from the increased space it now has.

Onto other things, this is a picture of one of the Crossley Specials just on the turn from green to red.

I am not sure what is going on here but it looks like something might have impregnated one of my Tomatoes in some way? Any ideas?

The Mint is now flowering too...

... and has spread into quite a large plant now; I really should make some Mint Jelly.

Lastly it looks like we have an indoor slug, based on these munch patterns on the leaves of the large Geranium, and the slug trails I found this morning..... hmmm... going to have to do something about that.

Anyway, there you have it; I know you have missed my updates I am sure and I will try and be better at it, bear with me though while I catch the emigration blog up to date.

Cheers

Repotting Tomatoes (again)

For the last few weeks I have been looking at the larger Self Watering Planters which I made out of the large water bottles and have been dissatisfied with how they were performing. Not only was the volume available for the roots not quite as large as I wanted, but the reservoir kept drying out in a single day.

I think that the seal between the top and bottom was not great which caused evaporation to occur.

The other irritation was the cane I was using to provide support kept falling over and finally, actually watering into the reservoir was being difficult so I was having to waterlog the soil and hope it dripped through.

So, all in all, these were not working out for me and today, with the nice weather, I finally decided I'd had enough so I change the pots.

So, without any further ado, here is the blog...

This is the larger of the two Tomato plants laid down outside waiting to be shucked out of the self watering planter. If you look closely you can see just how tight the roots are already inside the plastic.

The two plant pots which I will be moving the Moneymaker Tomato plants into.

With much effort I managed to remove the root ball from the planter; it really did not have any more room to grow.

To solve the problem which using only one cane was causing I am going to create a tripod of three canes. Here I have loosely pushed them into the compost prior to adding the plant.

Here is the root ball settled in to a hollow in the compost, with the canes around it.

The whole Tomato plant sits nicely between the canes, and is held to them using the plastic catches which have proven so useful over the past year.

As explained earlier I am going to draw the canes together into a tripod so they work together to keep the plant upright; I have used an elastic band to hold them at the top.

There are some flowers on this Tomato plant, and I kinda liked this shot so I have added it; It shows again the tripod drawn together and one of the plastic catches that I am praising so much.

Some of the leaves towards the bottom of this Tomato plant have turned purple! I have never seen this before, anyone have any ideas?

Both of the Moneymaker Tomato plants have been repotted and are here sat back on the front windowsill. I hope this is the last time I have to move them.

Next a short update on the Potatoes as blogged about yesterday :)

Here are the three Potato planters, now propped up with various items and hopefully not to be blown over again. The middle one looks a little dead but I checked and it looks like it'll be OK. Fingers firmly crossed.

Some flowers are starting to show on my Potatoes. Is this a bad thing?

And finally....

I have decided to bring the larger of the two Geranium plants onto the front window where it will get more sunlight Let us see what happens.

So there you are, a quick update, but it has felt good to get things done today, in the sun.

Cheers

Moving the Globe Artichoke seedling plus progress

I have managed to get through this busiest of busy weeks. It truly is tough to get time to care for too many plants when you are holding down a full time job, helping run a business at weekends and you also have interests and hobbies which come in during the week.

However, today I have taken off work and so I have been able to get some moving of seedlings done (which I wanted to do on Tuesday) and also get round each pot to check on progress. Frankly I have left it too late for some; the Foxglove, having looked so healthy, today I have noticed had dried out and while it's not all dead most of the seedlings are very wilted; a good watering and back on the propagator for a few days before I decide what to do with them, I think.

But I am getting ahead of myself. My first task was to take the Globe Artichoke seedling and move it out of the propagator; it had got so big that I had to take off the lid of the propagator as the seedling was being squashed down!

This is what it looks like now; there is a hole in one of the leaves but I don't think this is a problem. It also already has second growth starting.

I have picked out a large-ish pot to move it to as it does seem to be growing very fast indeed.

The pot is filled with pre-warmed compost taken from my stash next to the radiator. You can see the hole already dug ready for the seedling to be put into.

And here it is, happily set in it's new home and ready for me to decide which of my over-crowded windowsills it should be put on. hmmm...

So that is the extent of my useful progress this week. I have, as discussed earlier, also got to go round and check on progress for all the other plants so...

I have previously talked a bit about how the Crossley Specials are all looking very happy now but some of the seedlings still have evidence of wilting. This is a picture of one of the seedlings which is like that.

This Crossley Special, however, has no such problems and displays no evidence whatsoever of wilting. It is exciting to see the stalks starting to turn red.

I've not put a picture of the mint for a while because it always just looks like mint. I thought I would today though to show you just how quickly and well it is growing.

This is the Moneymaker Tomato seedling which I managed to throw on the floor a few weeks ago. As you can see it is not showing any signs of distress and even has second growth starting to appear.

The other Moneymaker Tomato is also looking healthy and happy in its self watering planter. Unfortunately I have no sign of any growth at all from the Gardeners Delight Tomatoes so they are obviously not really living up to their name just yet :/

The larger of the two Geranium seedlings is now really starting to look established. Is there anything better than planting a seed and seeing it come to life and grow so well? If there is, I don't know what it is!

The smaller of the Geraniums is also growing well and its leaves are starting to show the shape of a Geranium.

The shop bought Coriander and Chives are still inside after their near miss with the snow and a good thing it is as today it is howling a gale outside and snowing.

A detailed picture of one of the seed grown Coriander. I am so pleased with this each pot now contains a very healthy and happy plant. It may even be time to move the ones I am going to keep into larger containers and give away the others to deserving homes.

Back to chillis, these are the Ghost Chilli seedlings which are still in the propagator and are established now. I think I am going to leave them in there until they get too large, as they obviously appreciate the warmer soil.

The two Birdseye seedlings are still going, but as I am always told by my friend, these do not grow fast or large. It feels like all the growth you see happened over two days and then they have stopped for the last week or so. Strange.

Now coming to what feels like the less successful parts of my experimentation; these are the Parsnips which are, truth be told, not look too weak but still I am not totally confident of a good harvest from these eight plants :/

Even worse are the Carrots which all look sad and droopy. I am going to keep watering them, keep an eye on them, and cross my fingers that this year I get at least ONE Carrot to nibble on.

The Potatoes are still chitting, though since last night I have noticed that where the Rocket was putting out nice white looking shoots they now appear black? hmmm

Finally for this a tray of soil which, honest, contains the Begonia tubers. No signs of life yet but hey, they haven't been planted for that long.

So there you have it; a nice full  update of all the progress made. Currently not giving me any joy at all is (in no particular order) the Kerela, the Echinops Ruthenicus, the other Globe Artichoke seedling, the Gardeners Delight Tomatoes and the Oregano and Sage which I am completely sure is totally never going to grow at all.

Lastly for this update I have taken a picture of our dining room, which I like to call my Nursery. I have the heated propagator on the windowsill, Carrots, Parsnips and Potatoes on the chairs, Coriander, Chives, Geraniums and Tomatoes squeezed in on CD racks and in spaces on the windowsill. There is NOT much space at all!

Cheers

Starting to plant potatoes and repotting the Parsnips

Happy weekend everyone :)

At the end of last week the final part of my bumper-order arrived which was my potato planters and some seed potatoes. Yesterday, therefore, I got all excited and decided to get them planted out.

These are the three shiny clean planters just out of the box. And yes that IS sun you can see in the picture. I know, it's been so LONG since we saw it!

Not so clean now, the instructions that I had read up to this point in time told me to fill the bag about one third full and plant some seed potatoes at that depth. So this is what I am doing...

... however after filling two of the three planters to that depth (just about) I recalled my hard-learned-lesson and thought "ooooh - I should be warming this up before planting". So this is one of the large bags of compost next to the radiator and I also brought the other two bags in after taking this picture.

I also read the rest of the instructions and discovered that they recommend that you Chit the Potatoes prior to planting into warmed soil anyway so this brought a resounding stop to my "let's plant some potatoes" plans for this weekend. I have, however, set them a-chitting...

Three egg boxes from the stack I have saved now finally coming in slightly useful.

The Maris Piper seed Potatoes set with the sprouting end upwards in the egg box which is clearly marked for future reference.

Five Rocket Potatoes set out for chitting.

And finally the Charlotte Potatoes wedged in.

These three egg boxes are now sat on a chair in the dining room next to the window as that room is cool and has plenty of light; my effort to take over the entire house with growing stuff is going well :)

So now I just leave these for a while; some websites are suggesting six weeks which just will NOT happen - I'm going to leave it until all of them have some good green showing, and then get them in the planters and outside...

To make up for the disappointment of not being able to plant my Potatoes, and also to make space on the boards next to the radiator, I have decided to take the sprouted Parsnips and put them into deeper soil. This is the first one to be moved.

All the Parsnip seedlings re-potted. I am a bit disappointed with my yield from the Parsnips and Carrots; I have probably only got about 65% seed success. I will not bother with the effort of singly planting these root crops again; next time I do it I will plant as I did last year, into grooves in the soil and using lots of seed up (but I will remember to bird-proof the seedlings too).

So, finally for this super long blog post, I have a couple of updates then I'll let you get on with your day...

First of all the second Birdseye Chilli has sprouted. This picture was taken on Saturday and when I checked this morning it was already about twice as big as this.

The shop bought Coriander is now fully back to life and looking strong and healthy. If you look to the right edge of this picture you will see stubs where leaves have been picked; this is providing us with tasty additions to curries regularly already.

Outside, the Broccoli appears to be putting on a growth spurt and the leaves are starting to take on a less "juvenile" shape. Here's hoping we can be eating this soon too.

By contrast the Onions have not really done much at all; this picture nicely shows the success I have had with each seed as you can clearly make out the V shape I planted the seeds in.

Lastly for outside the Lettuce is still pathetic and small... come on little seedlings, get big so I can eat you!

Finishing with a success story; the seed grown Coriander, which was looking so unhappy in the rubbish planting material the seeds came with, are now really strong looking and potentially I will be ready to give a couple of these away to deserving people. Shout now if you want any?

So, there you have it... I will keep a photo diary of the potatoes and may bore you yet with a day by day chitting progress report when I get round to planting them.

I'm hopeful for another guest blog post shortly too.

Keep growing.