How did it get to the end of May so soon?

I can't believe that we are now almost at the end of May already.

Seed potatoes waiting to be planteed

It feels like I have done almost nothing on the plot, there are plenty of beds that need topping up with compost, half of my seed potatoes are still waiting to get planted out and the majority of the seeds I had planned to grow this year are way past their optimal time for sowing.  I was going to lift the strawberries and replant them through weed fabric, but that should have been done whilst they were still mostly dormant back in March.



Finally up and ready for use

We weren't even able to inspect the bees on time, so they swarmed and we lost half of them as we couldn't collect the swarm.

There have been some high points recently as well - the greenhouse that I got from FreeCycle is finally up and fastened securely to the flags that make up its base and being well used.

Jack's Patch on April 26th

My grandson Jack has come to the plot with me a few times and has got his own bed for planting in right next to the seating area where he can be looked after.  He is only just two, so his helping involves jumping in muddy puddles and throwing compost and soil over himself at every opportunity, but it does lift my heart to see him having such a good time outdoors.

Shallots, Little Gens and Spinach planted

I am hoping that by having his own growing space and encouraging him to plant what he wants he may be more inclined to taste fruit and veg he might otherwise not try.  I can live in hope, anyway.

The first early potatoes that I put in on Easter Monday have finally shown their heads and are looking to be strong plants, so I hope that I can get a decent crop from them when they are ready for harvest which should be around my birthday, the first week of July.

It remains to be seen if their somewhat delayed start will mean that they are not ready for a few weeks after this - I will wait for them to flower and the foliage to wilt before tipping them out.

I'm sure that Jack will give me a helping hand and will appropriate most of them to take home to his mum for dinner.



Tomatoes, Celeriac, Chillis, Pumpkins, Courgettes,Shallots

I have rescued the shallots from the old polytunnel where they have been sat since October last year and pretty much neglected.

A couple of the tomatoes I started at the beginning of March have also survived and have been potted on along with some little gems, spinach and celeriac, and I bought a small pack of cauliflower plugs from Aldi which are doing well in the cold frame.
I have also sown far too many courgetes and pumpkins (in the plastic cups to the right of the picture) , but I wanted to make sure that I had at least one pumpkin for Jack's Patch.  As of this morning I have three pumpkins and eight courgettes :)

Sowing Update

I planted my first batch of seeds on Thursday Feb 26th, and put the broad beans and tomatoes on the windowsill.

I had intended to sow more seeds into the tray with the lettuce and shallots and put them in a sunny place but for one reason or another it was over a week before I did, which meant that most of the lettuce had germinated and was very, very leggy.

Broad Beans doing well

These may not be any good and may need replacing - the good news is that I still have loads of spare seed and the fact that it germinated so quickly is a good sign.

Most of the broad beans have germinated and so I have had to remove the propagator top. The Scarlet Flowered ones lagged behind the Bunyard's Exhibition by about a week, but as I write this on March 11 most are up.



Of the ten varieties of tomato that I sowed, the Green Zebra were very slow to germinate, and only two of the five seeds planted have come up but there is at least two of every other variety apart from the Marmande where only one has shown so far


Again, the top has been taken off the propagator as the plants were touching it.

Leggy lettuce to the left

On March 7th I sowed Red Baron and Kelsae onions, Giant Prague celeriac, Little Gem Lettuce, All Year Round Lettuce and Broccoli Raab into the tray already containing the lettuce and shallots, and this tray was then placed into my unheated conservatory for them to germinate.

Nothing is showing as yet, but it's only been a few days and it is still quite cold in there.

The New Season Starts Here

I have spent quite a few hours over the winter trying to decide what to grow on the allotment this coming season.

Like many gardeners, over the last couple of years I have built up a quite impressive collection of different seeds from many places.

Some of these, like the Purple Topped Milan Turnips, will never get planted as neither I nor my wife like them.

Others like Asparagus Pea have been planted once but we didn't like the taste.

Yet more are in the sad situation of being either too far past their use-by date to be worth trying again.

The final lot of seeds destined never to be sown on my allotment are those that are OK, but are not my favoured variety - a good example being the Purple Climbing French Beans that I grew last year.  Perfectly good in their own right, but not as nice on the plate (in my opinion) as Cobra or Blue Lake.

I store my seeds in three large plastic boxes that used to hold mushrooms, and each box is split into three sections.

The seeds are split into the following sections - Brassicas, Herbs, Legumes, Leaf Crops, Cucurbits, Root Crops, Tomatoes and Chillis, Alliums and Others.

After discarding the out-of-date seeds and those that I won't be using for the reasons listed above, I still have over 150 varieties including 20 types of tomato, 11 chilli peppers, 9 lettuce, 6 courgettes and 5 types of cauliflowers including purple and romanescue.

Obviously I won't be able to grow all of these, but until the sowing time arrives I am holding back on choosing one variety over another.

Last summer I had been asked to help judge the local Housing Association Garden competition, and I received £50-worth of garden vouchers as a 'thank you', so I decided to make good use of them and purchase a few propagators and seed trays so that I was able to start my seed sowing tonight.

I chose 10 tomato varieties (last year I didn't get a single tomato, so I am determined to do better this year).  I wanted lots of variety so I planted a couple of cherry tomatoes, a couple of large beefsteak type, some plum (standard and baby) and then some unusual varieties like Green Zebra and Orange Banana.

Broad Beans were fairly easy as I only had two varieties, Crimson Flowering and Bunyard's Exhibition, so I sowed a dozen of each.

Last year I got a few packets from Seeds of Italy which I was very happy with, so I also sowed a few cells with Lettuce Bisca Rossa which had provided us with several nice salads over summer.

I am also trying some shallots from seed this year, the variety is Zebrune, and so I sowed 21 into individual cells.  I normally use sets, but wanted a bit of a challenge this year :)

I have put the mini propagators on the box room windowsill to germinate - hopefully I will start to see some life within the next week.

Seven Week Itch?

It is now exactly seven weeks since I signed up for my allotment, and so much has happened since then.

I started out with loads of ideas, plenty of book and internet knowledge but very little in the way of practical skills or experience in how to create and manage a full sized plot.  In fact, it wouldn't have been an exageration to say that my learning curve was pretty much vertical in those first few weeks.

So, what have I learned in this short space of time?

 Pigeons like to eat anything green.  They made short work of the Savoy cabbage that I planted in bed 2, but fortunately I was able to get them covered over quick enough so that they have been able to make quite a dramatic recovery.



Covered bed

I also learned that even if some of your seedlings have been left alone by the pigeons, you can't rely on them always being left alone.  I had put all the spare seedlings to one side, on top of the pile of wood and they hadn't been attacked so I made the mistake of not making sure the netting was over them.  The pigeons found them and totally decimated them, including my three patty pans.

Len, one of the old hands on the allotment, told me that the pigeons prefer to land and walk to their food, which has explained why nothing in my square foot bed has been touched, as the network of strings marking out the squares must have put them off.

The hardest lesson so far is that there is always another pest on the plot ready to carry on where one has finished.



The mauled remnants of my seedlings



After the pigeons had taken most of the seedlings on the wood pile I covered them with netting and planned to plant the survivors on my next visit.

Two days later when I came to look at them I found them crawling with slugs that had taken almost everything that the pigeons had left behind.  They had even got into my onions and cored them out.  I am still hopeful that one or two may survive despite the mauling they have had, but I have moved everything to the front of bed 2, surounded by slug pellets and protected by netting, where they should have been from the start.

Purple Milan Turnip Seedlings

It hasn't all been bad, though.

Most of the planst sown direct have germinated, and are showing strongly.  The ones that surprised me the most were the turnips - first to show with almost 100% germination they are going strong.



Chard going wild



Some of the transplanted seedlings have also done really well, with the chard and leef beet being the most vigorous.

Lots of Leaf Beet

The plan was to keep them under control by regular harvests of the young leaves by my son Will, but he hasn't been to the plot for a couple of weeks so they have got a little bit out of control.  I am going to have to pick and freeze a lot of leaves over the next few days.

Lettuce doing well

The All Year Round lettuce which I didn't have much hope for when it was planted out is flourishing.  A couple of the more sickly plants didn't make it, but out of 16 plants I have 11 strong plants putting out lots of great tasting leaves.

I have taken a few leaves to have for the next day's dinner a few times now, and I am impressed by the flavour.  Definitely one to grow again, I think.

Courgettes Nice de la Ronde and All Green Bush

The two courgettes that I did manage to get into the ground are also doing OK, but nowhere near as good as the chard, lettuce and leaf beet.

There have been a couple of flowers on both, but so far only males until I looked this morning and found a couple of female flowers ready to open, one on each plant so I might get courgettes this year after all!

Brussel Sprouts and Purple Sprouting Broccoli

  Under the netting the brassicas are coming along nicely, most of the brussels, PSB and curly Kale are all about 18 inches tall now, apart from one brussel that has yet to grow past five inches tall!

The plant itself looks healthy enough, it is just a midget compared to the others.  Hopefully it will catch up soon.



Recovering Savoy Cabbages

 In bed 2 I have the Savoy cabbage that were attacked by the pigeons.  Fortunately they all seem to have survived and have put on quite a bit of new leaf this week.

They are still quite a bit behind the three I planted into bed 1, though.

Step dad Ken is still convinced that bed 2 will do best for cabbage.  Personally I think it will be a close thing but I hope bed 1 wins so I can say 'Told You So'



Nearly Ripe Cherry Tomato

 

More Tomatoes Ripening

 Another transplant into bed 2 were my cherry tomatoes from home.

These had outgrown their pots and desperately needed planting out, and have done really well so far, with three  fruit from each this week.  A bit more sun and I will have plenty more ready.

Jack O'Lantern Male Flower

Stars of the show for me so far must be the two pumpkins.



Jack O'Lantern Vine

 I have never tried to grow anything like these before, and now they have got themselves established you can almost watch them growing.

A set Fruit?

Mammoth Vine

Both plants have now got what looks to be two fruit that have set, and with the current climate of sunshine and downpours it couldn't be better growing weather.

Mammoth Fruit

Once they start to get a little larger I will have to make sure that they are supported off the ground to try and keep them rot and slug free.

The first fruit from the Mammoth that I hoped had set hasn't changed size at all, so it may be better to cut it off and leave the other two to grow, but I will probably wait to make sure first.

Water, Water, Everywhere .......

We spent some time at the plot tonight trying to figure out the best way to deal with the sodden ground that covers most of the back half of the allotment.

The plot is bordered by cinder paths, so yesterday afternoon I dug a test pit through one to see if we could persuade the water to start to flow in that direction.  The pit was about 18 inches deep.

Test Pit

This was what we saw there tonight.

This was good news as it meant that it would be possible to persuade the water to flow away from the plot.

We started off with a few shallow channels in the mud to encourage the water on the surface to flow.

This was followed by a deeper, wider channel which soon became filled with run-off.

We were unable to follow up on our discoveries as the boundary fence near to the corner of my plot is due to be replaced, and so any drainage channels that we dig would be likely to be destroyed when the contractor brings in his equipment.

On the plus side, we are going to ask if they will dig the channels for us with their equipment whilst they are there.  If you don't ask ....

Whilst we were there I took the opportunity to plant a few more specimens from home - three tomatoes and two chillis.


Two of the tomatoes are already producing fruit - I was able to harvest three red and three yellow cherry tomatoes from them.

Tomatoes and Chillis

The chillis and third tomato have come from the bedroom windowsill - I know it is probably far too late in the season to be planting these out, but as the only other option for these plants was the compost heap I am going to give them a fighting chance.



Rhubarb

I also planted up the rhubarb that Diane gave us a couple of weeks back.  It was planted into a hole that had at least six inches of manure in the bottom, and was finished off by another spade-full on top.  This is only a temporary home until we can get the water problem sorted,




Now for a quick spin round bed 1.

The lettuce are really doing well now, despite them looking rather sick when they were first planted out.  The Kale and PSB are also doing well, as are the Brussels, with the exception of one plant.  This little one looks healthy, but is only about half the size of the others - I wonder why?



Leaf Beet, Cabbage and Turnip



Flowering French Beans



The Leaf Beet, Chard and Savoy Cabbage are all coming on strongly, as are the French Beans which are now flowering.  The leaves on some of the peas continue to look a little yellow, but they now have four pods.

The majority of the seeds that Will sowed nine days ago have now come up - all the turnips and most of the pak choi, but strangely enough not all of the spinach have (apart from the ones he spilled and didn't pick up).  It may be that he planted them a bit too deep perhaps?

One bad note - the pigeons have decimated the plants that I had waiting to go in - I forgot to cover them up again when I left on Sunday, and they have eaten about 90% of the seedlings.

Windowsill Update - Part 5

It's been two weeks since the last update, and the windowsill is looking distinctly bare nowadays.

I planted both the borlitti and mange tout into my garden last weekend as they were getting a bt out of control - the borlotti was over four feet tall and the mange tout was ranging all over the windowsill in search of something to climb up.

I think I should really have moved them earlier as a couple of the borlotti stems got bent while untangling ready to transplant, but they seem to have come through OK and are thriving outdoors,

I have got the borlotti growing up the trellis in my original narrow beds, and the mange tout are growing up canes in the 4' x 4' bed.

Of the plants left on the windowsill, the two 'Sweet Baby' tomatoes are now both over 6" high, both chilli 'Anaheim' are about 4" tall and showing plenty of leaf.

My two experiments, however, are not doing as well.

Of the 17 radish plants in a single tray that I separated most have withered and died.  There are six whose leaves have simply dried out completely and are nothing but a stem with crispy bits attached.

A further six have some greenery left, but aren't looking happy at all, and the remaining five aren't looking too bad at all, but still have some crispy leaves attached to them.  Three of the five were actually transplanted, so I'm not sure if it was the act of transplanting that disturbed the roots and caused the problem or not.

Either way, I'm not confident that any will survive much longer.

The spinach I planted in the tiny root cells that my veg plugs from Aldi came in is also having problems. 

I have had to water them, even though they were sat in a water retaining gel, which has caused some kind of algae bloom in the gel itself, the gel has dried up to about half its original volume and is completely filled with an amazing root system from the spinach.

Some of the spinach seedlings haven't rooted themselved properly and are lying on the surface, and many of the ones that are standing up straight are up to three inched tall, but have already started to bolt and set seed, probably as they are under stress in the mini-cloche.

I am going to plant these out either tonight or over the weekend to see if any can be salvaged, although I am not going to be holding my breath over them.  I think I will have to cut open the mini cells to plant them so I have some chance of not destroying the roots completely.

I think I will be underplanting my kale and Romanescue caulis which although they are growing well, don't need the full space as yet.

So, what have I learned from the windowsill this season?

Some successes with the tomato and chilli, I have strong plants which are nearly ready for planting on, even though they may be a little late in the season to do much.

Another success was the home-made light reflector that stopped the plants from leaning alarmingly towards the window - definitely using that again next year.

Lessons have been learnt with the beans and mange tout - next year I will plant them singly into pots and plant them out much earlier to avoid damaging the plants when doing so.

More lessons with the radish and spinach.  Neither seem to be happy on the windowsill, and radish certainly don't like having their roots disturbed.

Re-using the mini cells from the Aldi plug plants seemed like a good idea at the time,  but it has not gone quite to plan so I won't use them again.  The mini-cloches will probably be used but with seeds planted straight into compost in the base, without the cells or gel.

I may grow spinach on the windowsill again, but into larger pots with a couple of seeds in each to avoid the problems caused by the mini cells.

End of week catch up

In the past week since I last posted things have been moving on quite a bit, both at the allotment and at home, and I have had a major catastrophe too.

On Sunday afternoon I was relaxing in my hot tub after a few hard hours at the allotment when one of our cats knocked my mobile phone into the water.

Needless to say it was a complete write off, so I haven't been able to post up any more pictures since, which has kind of put me off writing anything.

So - what has been going on this week at home?

I have harvested a few more rhubarb stems which were stewed down with some sugar and a bit of water - very nice, but it really needed a bit more sugar.  All right - a lot more, to be honest.

The first few raspberries of the year have been eaten too - they didn't need any extra sweetener as they were gorgeous by themselves.  There is another handful ready too, looking forwards to picking those tomorrow.

I have also harvested a few Rainbow Chard leaves and steamed them with some cabbage given to me by a very generous allotment neighbour.  Not sure if I prefer them to spinach right now, but I will have plenty more opportunities to decide as the chard has really started to fill out and develop into really big plants.  I'm glad I decided to give them plenty of room when I planted them out six weeks ago!

The lettuce tub by the front door has also been raided quite a lot this week, but as they are starting to show signs of bolting we will be eating them as fast as we can before they turn bitter.

I have also picked up a young melon plant and stuck it into my largest pot - you never know, we might actually get some sun over the next few weeks to allow fruit to develop.  I am thinking of building up a frame for it to climb up - apparently this will encourage it to set more fruit along the length of the vine rather than just at the end as it would if I let it crawl along the floor.

The borlotti and mange tout on the windowsill desperately need planting out - the borlotti is now nearly four foot tall and looking for something to climb up, the mange tout has flopped over and is rapidly spreading along the windowsill.  I have a space picked out in the front garden in front of the trellis for them, so hopefully they will be able to handle the shock of being outdoors for the first time

The two tomato seedilngs in one pot have been separated into their own pots and are coming on well.  The chillis have now got four leaves each, and are slowly getting stronger.

The spinach grown in the gel is doing remarkably well, the only problem I forsee is trying to get the plants out of their cells without losing half of the root system which is now well established within the gel itself.  I am going to plant these inbetween the leeks in the raised bed - they should be picked and eaten long before I need to get at the leeks.

Not too sure about the radish at the moment - the majority of the first leaves have withered and died, but only a couple of the plants have well developed true leaves as yet.  It may be that I am going to lose a lot of these plants.  The plan is to plant them out below the brassicas in the bed in front of the trellis once they have all got good true leaves showing.

In the blow away it is like looking through a jungle, the plants are doing so well.

I am considering bringing some of the trays out and leaving them on some greenhouse staging just to give a bit of room to the others left behind.

I am very pleased with the pumpkins - both are getting quite big now, so I will have to look at potting them up into bigger containers as they really don't like being cramped.

One disappointment so far has been the onions.  They have been pricked out into individual modules for some time now, but there is virtually no signs of growth from any of them as yet.

With the weather having been so bad this week I haven't had much time to get down to the allotment, but I have had 8 tonnes of cow manure delivered in anticipation of some nice weather that will allow me to rotivate part of the plot and get it all mixed in.

I have spent an hour tonight moving the first of it off the path where it was dumped - 11 barrows-full and I have hardly dinted the pile!  I reckon there is about another 150-200 barrows-full to go, so at my curent speed it will take me 10-15 more hours!  I just hope that I will speed up as I get more used to the work.

Windowsill Update Part 3

Before I get pulled away to spend all my spare time preparing the new allotment I thought I would go round the plants on the windowsill and report on their progress.

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.



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.

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.



Borlotti



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.

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.





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.

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.

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.

D-Day

Today is the day I get my allotment!

Had lots of emails back and forth with the allotment secretary last night.

I have now been offered the full plot instead of the three quarters I was going to take - apparently the lady who was going to have the other quarter has been offered space on another plot.

I had a chat with my stepdad (who is my allotment partner) and my wife (who is having a quarter for soft fruit) and they both said to go for it, so this afternoon I will be signing up for the full plot.

I just hope that I am not taking on more than I can handle here.

The secretary also told me that the plot has been recently strimmed - I am not sure if that is good or bad right now as I would have liked to have walked the plot first just in case there were any plants mixed in with the weeds that could be saved as I had been told by a neighbouring plotholder that there was some rhubarb in there somewhere. It would also have shown me where the nasty perennial weeds were.

On the other hand, it has saved me a day's work, and I can get straight on with creating my first couple of beds, depending upon what the ground is like.  It has rained so much here recently that I am concerned that the soil will be so wet that I really can't dig it. or if there is a lot of clay in the ground as my stepdad thinks, there will be standing water all over the plot.



Seedlings ready for planting 



More seedlings!



Last night I totally emptied the blow away to do a thorough check for slugs and snails hiding on the underside of the various pots and planting trays in there.

It was only when I laid all the trays out on the hot tub lid I realised just how many seedlings I actually have ready for planting out - and remember, I also have more on the table in the front garden.

The haul in the blow away that is ready to plant out is:

67 onions - not sure if these are ready as they are only tiny as yet.

15 Winter Cauliflowers

15 Winter Cabbage

15 Purple Curly Kale

15 Brussel Sprouts

15 Purple Sprouting Broccoli

1 Tomato

6 Peas

1 Capsicum Pepper

2 Pumpkins

4 Courgettes



Even more seedlings!

Left over from planting the front garden

1 Swiss Chard

3 Leeks

2 Cavolo Nero

2 Curly Kale

1 Romanesco Broccoli

Not big enough to plant out yet are

9 Lettuce

3 Kohn Rabi

11 Courgettes

I have also got loads and loads of seeds ready to go in.

I just hope I can keep everything under control!

Windowsill Update

As I am hoping to get the keys to the allotment on Saturday which is only five days time, it is time for an update on how the seeds I planted on the windowsill seven days ago are faring.


Borlotti doing well



Three of the four borlotti that I planted are doing well and about four inches tall.  The fourth has just started to show but is a sickly yellow colour so might not do as well as the others.



The first true leaves are well established with signs of the next pair already evident.  These will soon need potting on into individual pots with some support from a cane before I can get them into a prepared bed on the allotment, hopefully by next Monday or Tuesday, weather depending.



Mange Tout



The Oregon Sugar Pod mange tout are also showing lots of growth. 

Despite germinating before the borlotti they are only three inches tall but are more developed and already have set their second, or even third set of true leaves.  These will also need to be potted on fairly soon, but probably after the borlotti.

 

The French Breakfast radish are romping away and are now nearly two inches tall.  I planted two seeds in each of nine stations and as you can see from the picture all bar one has come up.  Once the second set of leaves arrives I will be trying to transplant the weaker seedling to ensure that each has plenty of space for the root bulb to develop.  I have read that radish don't like to be moved - this should be a nice experiment to compare those that are moved to those left undisturbed.



Radish French Breakfast



Of the other seeds planted at the same time only the tomato, Sweet Baby have germinated as yet, and only two out of the four seeds planted.  At less than an inch high these will not need their own individual pots for a long time.  No movement at all from the chillis or pumpkin.  The pumpkin took 12 days to show when I germinated one outside, so I was expecting this one to come up faster.  Still, it does have five more days to go so I shouldn't be so impatient.



Sweet Baby tomato



The only other planter on the windowsill is my experiment with water retaining gel where I planted some spinach Matador into the modules in which I got the veg plug plants from Aldi.




Spinach Experiment



These were only sown on Saturday, so nothing is moving as yet.

One thing I have noticed with all the plants on the windowsill is that they are all bending towards the light instead of growing upwards.  At the moment I am combatting this by giving the post a quarter turn every morning, but I think I will try to make a simple light box for them.

This is done by covering a piece of cardboard with silver foil and standing it behind the plants to reflect whatever light comes in so that the seedlings will no longer have to bend towards it.  Hopefully it will work and I won't have to keep turning the trays and pots.