More seeds

Sowed a load of seeds yesterday ready to be transplanted to the allotment as soon as I have a bed ready for them, which I am hoping will be around my birthday on July 10.

I put in loads of cucurbits (courgette family) as last year I put them in late, and although some small fruit formed almost all rotted from the flower end before they were big enough to pick.


I planted 3 x Courgette 'De Nice A Fruit Rond' (never had a round courgette before so really hoping these come up),  4 x Squash 'Patty Pan Custard White', 3 x Courgette 'All Green Bush', 3 x Courgette 'F1 Defender' and 3 x Courgette 'F1 Atena'

I had a few spaces left so I decided to try some Kohl Rabi 'Purple Vienna' - another veggie I have never grown, or even eaten for that matter.  I sowed three or four seeds in each 'plug' just in case some didn't germinate.



What I planted today.



I also planted out a couple of spare plants to replace the slug and snail eaten ones - a couple of Romanesque broccoli and a Cavolo Nero kale.  All my brassicas are now protected by pop bottle cloches.

I don't want to lose any more seedlings so the cloches will stay on until the plant is too big for them and hopefully big enough to survive the odd leaf being munched,

Fully loaded Blow Away

Had a quick look at the seeds I planted 10 days ago - no signs of anything from either of the pumpkins or the spring onions, but a couple of the Kelvedon Wonder peas are showing, and there is even a tiny bit of green from one of the Paris Market carrots.

One of the pepper plants in the blow away has got a flower on it.  Apparently they self-pollenate, so I may have at least one fruit this year.

Flowering Pepper

Also in the blow away is my single aubergine plant which is getting quite tall now, and looks like it has recovered from the slug attack a couple of weeks back.  Apart from the pumpkins I think that this is the plant I am most looking forwards to see growing.

Aubergine - Recovered after slug attack

Maybe I can do this gardening stuff after all!

One new thing I tried yesterday was to mulch round the leeks in my raised bed with grass clipplings.  It is supposed to keep water in the soil - not that we have had any problems with shortage of water recently! and also to deter slugs and snails as it dries and becomes a barrier.

Part-mulched raised bed

We will see.