I made myself a light reflector from some cardboard covered with tin foil. The idea of this was to reflect the light coming through the window and try to stop the plants bending towards the sunlight outside.
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| Light Reflector |
It has only been in place for one day so far, but my first impression is that there isn't much difference.
All the radish and spinach were still leaning quite markedly towards the window, but the tomato and both sets of beans are pretty straight. The spinach was right at the end of the reflector, which may have been a factor.
I will try it for a bit longer, and have moved the spinach to a more central location.
Now for a quick spin around the windowsill.
Everything was planted on Monday 25th of June so is 13 days old today. The only exception is the spinach which was planted on Saturday 30th June and so is 8 days in.
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| Radish French Breakfast |
The radish 'French Breakfast' are doing well, and are about three inches tall. 17 out of 18 seeds germinated.
I think I will have to transplant them as soon as the second set of leaves appear as quite a few seem to be very shallow rooted and are flopping about all over the place.
As I sowed two seeds at each station they will definitely need separating if I want decent bulbs to form.
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Borlotti
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The borlotti are the star of the windowsill. 100% germination.
Their height ranges between 9 and 18 inches with lovely big, well defined leaves.
Once I get some room in the blow away I will have to get these hardened off ready for planting on the allotment.
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| Mange Tout 'Oregon Sugar Snap' |
The mange tout are also doing well, with lots of leaf and plenty of tendrils starting to look for support to climb.
They are all around 9 inches tall and I had 100% germination.
Another candidate for hardening off and planting out as soon as possible.
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| Tomato 'Sweet Baby' |
The tomato is finally starting to show the first set of true leaves, but at only just under 2 inches tall is going to be on the windowsill for some time to come.
2 out of 4 seeds have germinated, so quite a poor showing so far.
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| Chilli 'Anaheim' |
Finally some movement from the chillis!
I noticed one sedling showing through in one pot yesterday, and a second has shown today in a different pot.
Nothing from the third as yet, so that makes a disappointing 2 out of 6 germination rate so far.
Considering that the spinach has only been in for eight days I am quite pleased with the results.
The plants are an inch tall already, and look nice and healthy.
This was an experiment where I planted them in modules that I have sat in a water retaining gel to see how they would do without further watering.
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| Spinach 'Matador' |
I did drip a little water on them yesterday as the compost they were sitting in was bone dry, but looking at the gel this morning I can see that the roots have already started to come down into it, in some cases very strongly.
I am now a bit concenrned that I may damage these root systems when I plant the seedlings on, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
I planted two spinach into each of 15 modules and have got a total of 20 germinations, with only three modules yet to show. Not too bad for an experiment.
The one big disappointment on the windowill is the single pumpkin 'Mammoth' which has not yet shown at all.
The seed I planted outside in a pot in the blow away germinated after 12 days so I expected this one to be faster indoors.
I had a careful root around to check on the seed, and it is just starting to sprout so it may well catch up - time will tell.
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