The 8 tomato seedlings have been transferred now; 4 to a smallish terracotta pot. I'm hoping to keep them in these until they are big enough to get moved to their final pots, probably in April.
I planted them quite deep, as they had got quite leggy. They seem to be doing OK so far. I kept them in the heated propagator for the first day and night, and then moved them out of it this morning.
Here's hoping for good strong plants this year.
We bought a little 7w heated propagator the other day to start off our tomatoes, chillies and aubergines at home. Last year we couldn't start off our seeds until quite late in the season and with the rubbish rainy summer they didn't really get far enough along, a lot never ripened at all. We got something off them, but the real stars were the tiny 80p plants we bought (Shirley, Golden Sunrise, and a Plum I think) .
So the plan this year is to get the plants from our seeds to a similar size before taking them to the allotment. We decided to try 2 of each of our heritage seeds from last year first, we had 4 seeds of each left and had slow and patchy germination last year: Vintage Wine, which is a kind of knobbly stripy one ; Banana Cream, which has long 'plum' type yellow fruits; Christmas Grape, which produces vines of small cherry toms; and Lemon Tree, which has surprisingly lemon looking fruit, right down to the point at the end!
And so far 2 of each of everything except the Banana Cream have come up. In just a week. The Banana Cream took longer than all the others to come up last year, so I expect that to pop up in a few days. Then we will stick them in a normal propagator, and then pots, and try and them get a bit bigger ready for transferring to the allotment.
Next on the list are: Red Robin tomatoes, little bushes of cherry ones; Purple Calabash, lovely knobbly dark red/black ones; Bolivian Rainbow chillies, and Money Maker aubergines.
Here is hoping for a good crop this year.
Today we decided to clean out the greenhouse ready for the new season.
So is has now been scrubbed out with insecticidal soap, under the benches have been sort of tidied, and trays and propogator cleaned out.
Once that was done we decided to try starting off some peas and beans in the propagator. It is a bit early really but we figured it was worth a go as we have some little biodegradable pots very cheap the other week, so we can put them in the propogator, out in the greenhouse, then out into the coldframe before transferring them to the ground when they are a bit bigger without disturbing their roots.
We have sowed 4 broad beans, 4 starlight pea, 4 early kelvedon wonder, and 4 ambassador. Last year, we didn't do successional sowing, so ended up with a glut. Next lot of the same can get sowed in 4 weeks. Dwarf beans and runner beans later in the season.
We also put some mushroom spawn in a try under the bench, not sure it is warm enough yet for it really. It is also an old packet from last year, which has got a bit damp at some point so it may not sprout anyway. We will see.
I have made borscht tonight, I'm just simmering it now before giving it a bit of a blitz.
The beetroot isn't homegrown unfortunately, but the cabbage is. I love how cabbage looks when you cut into it: like marble.
I softened onion in a pan, added the cabbage and beetroot (about half the amount of cabbage to beetroot, by weight) added a tablespoon of cider vinegar, a bay leaf, and some salt and pepper, and then added stock and am simmering for an hour or so. I'll leave it to cool a bit, before blitzing in the blender, and then reheat before eating and serve with a blob of yoghurt or sour cream.
I think I'll make some red coleslaw, and some braised cabbage with the other cabbage and a half I have left.
The day after the AGM, all fired up, we went to the plot to start clearing and preparing for the new seeds to go in. We had bought a sieve for our compost so the first task of the day was to go through that removing anything that was still recognisable, including nails, and glass. The last guardians of Plot 60 weren't so discerning about what they put on the heap, and we are still seeing the results of that!
The sieving was hard work, I felt like I was using all sorts of muscles jiggling about like that, and about an hour and 4 wheelbarrows later we had enough sieved compost to cover a bed about 5cm deep all over.
We covered it over with black plastic afterwards in the hope of warming the soil up and then I think after that we might plant the strawberry runners that we potted on into it. We are upping the fruit production this year, as smoothies made from your own soft fruit are one of the best things ever, and certainly save on our shopping bill.
The rainbow chard has survived the winter in the greenhouse, despite the ice in there. I may start feeding it when it gets a little warmer, as it is going very slow. That and the spring onions are the only things growing right now really. Well, a small turnip or two, and a couple of cabbages also, but they are more vestiges of a season passed than seasonal crops, so I'm not sure they count.
We had our allotment AGM the other day, but unfortunately there weren't enough people there to hold it formally (we needed over half of all the plots represented). However whilst quite a few of us were there we decided to have an informal chat about various things: the workdays we had last year, the bank balance, security (as always), plans for attracting some cash, help and materials, and the progress with the community garden which is in the process of being created on the eastern edge of our site.
So, it turned out to be a pretty good and informative meeting in the end. Especially good for us, as we hadn't been to one before as we got our plot in Feb last year.
I have volunteered to be on the committee too as they were looking for some new faces, and someone else has done too, so hopefully a bit of new blood will keep the energy levels up. I'm looking forward to helping out - the work days were good fun last year, and I'm sure we can build on them this year.
We went down to the plot for the first real amount of time since the New Year the other day. There had been high winds earlier in the week and our fence had been knocked over (which pepette kindly told us about through this blog) so we firstly fixed that. Not much else had been damaged or whisked away by the wind, and the only damage was caused by a bit of corrugated plastic from someone another plot landing on our broccoli and sprouts. Fortunately our broccoli and sprouts were rubbish anyway so we haven't really lost anything there.
We got the stove going pretty quickly which kept us warm while we were there, which was enjoyable.
We have bought some seeds from Garden Organic and some seed potatoes and jerusalem artichoke slips. We plan to get a little heated propagator for home to start off some things, and to start off some others in the greenhouse soon. When it is a little bit warmer. For now I think it is a matter of clearing up some of the beds (pulling out the rubbish broccoli) and covering some with plastic to try and warm them up.
So those are the next jobs, and the fixing up of our shed floor and a bench, and the LeanHouse™ and a bench for there too.
