Tuesday 15 April 2008

Playing catch up...

While the weather held out to be far better than expected over the weekend We didn't get to spend as much time at the allotment as we'd have liked. In fact it was only the ten minutes it took to plant out the sugar snap and mange tout peas we had growing at home that we spent up there over the two days.

This didn't mean a lack of any progress at all however; Sunday afternoon saw a much needed sowing and re-potting session in the back garden. While Melanie filled up almost the whole greenhouse with trays full of flower seeds I spent a good couple of hours potting on the various tomato, pepper and chilli seedlings I had into pots big enough for them to live in till they're planted out into their final homes and then catching up with the all seed sowing that needed to be done.

In the propagator we have some Aubergine (Black Beauty), Sweet corn (Early extra Sweet F1), Marrow (Long Green Bush 2) and three kinds of Courgette (Parador, Defender and Covili). There's also a couple of more weird and wonderful veg in the form of some Vegetable Spaghetti and Tomatillo.

The other job we got done was to get the potatoes we're growing at home started off. With four tubs and a different variety in each (King Edward, Accent, Pink Fir Apple and Kerrs Pink) we're doing a bit of a taste test really to see if we fancy growing any of these in bigger quantities on the allotment next year.

Weather permitting we've got lots of work to do at the allotment this week, biggest job that needs jobbing is to dig the second potato bed and get the main crop spuds in the ground, they seem to have been chitting for months so we'll be glad to finally be rid of them cluttering up the house.

5 comments:

Nome said...

Oooh congrats, me too!

I'd be interested to know how big your potato pots are and how many you're putting in each. I'm thinking of trying this for the first time this year but I'm not sure how many to put in...

Your toms are looking good - I swear everyone else's seedlings grow faster than mine!

Nome said...

Just read your last post too - borage is brilliant, attracts loads of bees and repels tomato hornworm. But beware; it gets waaay bigger than I was expecting when I planted it last year - about a metre in every direction!

Mrs Be said...

You're way ahead of me, I've been thinking about patio pots but have not got round to doing them.

Very impressed by your green fingers! Do you have a greenhouse or is it all on the windowsills? Windowsills here (toddlers permitting).

I've linked to your blog - hope that's ok.

vegmonkey said...

Those peas look good! I recognice those potato pots...i'm thinking you got them from Dundry? My potatoes are just coming thru...

Paul and Melanie said...

@ Nome - I'm not too sure how bit the pots are to be honest, I will have a measure and let you know. They are 3 seed potatoes in each which seems quite a lot for the space but thats what we were told when we bought them so we'll see how they turn out...

@ Mrs B - Thanks for stopping by! :) We have a small plastic greenhouse (there's a pic on an earlier entry somewhere) but I tend to start most stuff off inside on windowsills then move it out to the greenhouse later to harden off as I'm keep the door open 24/7 by then as it gets far too hot in there once the weather warms up.

@ Veg Monkey - Yep, you guessed it! lol They're from Dundry as are all our seed potatoes. Great shop, our fave local garden center! :)