Potting out the Chillis

Yesterday I finally managed to get round to potting out the chillis.

My chillis are SUBSTANTIALLY smaller than Jon's at work and I was starting to develop an inferiority complex. A theory has developed that I have stunted them by keeping them in small pots for too long...

So, follows the photo-story of me potting them into much larger pots to hopefully encourage the growth spurt that they so desperately need.

First I gathered together large pots for the purpose. I have seven chilli plants remaining.

Then I put some plastic packing material in the bottom of each pot, to improve drainage and stop waterlogging.

The pot was then filled with compost and a hole dug centrally that was big enough to accept the root-system.

Each plant was carefully placed into the hole, ensuring that the roots were not disturbed, and the stem was below the surface of the soil up to the first baby leaves (a trick described in lessons learned from potting out my tomatoes).

The plant, placed as described above.

A very happy looking chilli plant, with the soil tamped down gently to secure the stem, and watered liberally to encourage bedding in.

I now have two chilli plants back in the window where the plant nursery is, one on my bedroom window, one in one of the greenhouses and three in pots actually outside; this means that the current change in weather (I'm now watching out for rain) is directly a result of my putting hot weather plants outside without protection!

Once this blog is done I will be going to stake out the plants which are outside, to ensure if the storm that is brewing does break, the plants are not blown over and killed.

I managed just now to complete a full weeding circuit of the main vegetable beds; the first time I have been over the Carrots and the Parnsips. This has taken me about an hour all told (20 mins yesterday and 40 today) and I am pretty confident there are no weeds left in any patch. This gives you an idea of how long it is taking me to keep up with all these plants. I may just do a study of the time I'm spending over a whole week and write a blog about that.

The only bed left to weed now is the Cabbages, and they are doing very well so this is going to be my task for tomorrow evening after work.

Finally, I have once again been mentioned on twitter on one of those online newspapers and I would like to say "thank you" to the people who put it together; it's great to be being read by people and if any of you come to this from one of those link sites then Welcome and please make yourself at home.

I'm actually on The Idaho Agriculture paper twice, with yesterdays blog post.

Edit - I have staked out the chilli plants:

Edit 2 - told you it'd rain:

Hanging Baskets with Tomatoes in

Today I managed to buy some hanging baskets to put some tomato plants in.  I've been planning to do this, as part of my "how do tomatoes grow best" experiment.

So I got my hammer drill, and other tools, out and put up the brackets.

Ready for the tomato plants to be transplanted into them.

I had one and a half trays of seedlings that I had yet to pot out, and gathered some more pots

The hanging baskets, with tomato plants in them, happy in the sun.

I then potted out the rest of the tomatoes from the tray into larger pots, and I used some little clips that I bought from Wilkinsons, to attach the stems to little sticks.

Of the herbs on the Window Sill Herb Garden, the Basil and the Thyme have both started sprouting already!

Still nothing from the mint.

This is a shorted blog post tonight; I've just got in from having dinner sat in the garden appreciating just how lovely it looks and how nice it is to eat things picked from the garden (we had chives picked 10 mins before we ate them; perfection)

I do have a little more advice I need; the planters that I have started the Lettuce off in have BOTH been colonised by ants; is this going to cause me a problem and if so, how the HELL do I get rid of the little bastards?

I think that the initial premise of this blog has pretty much been proved; I still have a job and a successful business and I'm already eating food grown in my back garden, and am not far off being able to provide almost an entire meal prepared with food grown by myself - a VERY satisfying feeling indeed.

Before anything has happened.....

Hello there,

Welcome to my blog and thank you for dropping by. I suppose I should probably introduce myself and explain what it is this blog will be about; so....

I am a (relatively) normal 30ish man who works full time alongside running another full time business. In two weeks time myself, my girlfriend and our housemate are moving to a larger house with a large back garden and this has caused me to consider how I can use the space to reduce our food bills, increase our self reliance and reduce our dependence on taxable cash.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been doing some research on how I can organise such a decision around having a very busy work life (and very little time in the house) and have not really found many places where people talk about "homesteading" or "self sufficiency" but coupled with the very real pressures that come from still having a job; If I was willing to sack my business and job off and go full time as a homesteader then the resources available to me are quite significant.

So, in the spirit of giving I have decided that I should start my own blog, with my own experiences and lessons that I have learned, so maybe others who are also considering how such a decision CAN work with multiple other commitment will be able to make an informed decision.

So, please do get in touch if you have any hints or helpful ideas... and let's see where this takes us. I am hopeful that this experiment will be a success and I will find that I can juggle growing some/most of my own food with the rest of my life. Who knows.

So, what am I considering as the first steps?

The house I am moving to has a sizable back garden so the first thing will be to decide where I should place things such as a vegetable garden, maybe a small green house, and potentially chickens. I am also starting a Compost Heap and I think that this is going to be the first thing that I do.

So, right now I'm on the look out for good links to posts about composting and reuse of vegetable matter. I am also considering the requirements for chickens to be kept safe in a semi-rural environment where humans are not around a lot to watch them etc.

I will blog about my discoveries in the next few days.

Regards

TPTH