Carrot planter

Yesterday we moved Graeme's construction to the allotment:

Notice how the soil is already drying out? We definitely need to get some more organic material in there this autumn. We filled each side of the planter with 2*56 litres of general purpose compost mixed with some topsoil from part of the plot where the soil is in good condition (where the fork is in the right of the pic). In the right-most planter I sowed three rows of seeds:

Carrot Autumn King 2
Carrot Early Nantes 5
Beetroot Boltardy

In other news, the onion sets have sprouted roots and green shoots. I have moved these outside to harden off. The first batch of leek seeds are continuing to germinate ... I probably have about 80-100 plants now! I should have held off with the second sowing as we are now in danger of being overrun with them!

Upcycling: pallets to raised bed

Had good fortune to visit the waste wood collection area at work just after the pallet fairy had been and managed to save a couple from being firewood. After most of yesterday sawing, hammering and painting green of bits of wood arrived at:

Does not look like much but should be spot on for carrot growing (I hope!) Idea of the blue pipe is to support some mesh. Looks a bit twisted on the bottom picture as the ground it's on is not flat, but won't me a problem once we get this to the plot, though moving this will be bit of fun...

Potting up seedlings

Saturday afternoon was devoted to potting up some of our seedlings. I used soil-based John Inns No.2 compost from our local garden centre (apparently designed for potting on). First up was our onion seedlings. These have been potted into individual plastic cells and have joined the onion sets and chitting potatoes in our utility:

Despite a few casualties in the potting up process there were 84 survivors (out of approx 100 seeds sown).
The door at the end of the pic remains firmly bolted so nobody can inadvertently squash anything! Next up were the brassicas:

You might just be able to makes out the (rather muddy) masking tape demarcating the 8 cabbages (on the rhs) from the 7 cauliflowers (on the lhs). These are also living in the utility. The oriental salads were also ready to be potted on:

These have been potted into biodegradable pots to minimise root disturbance when planting out. Although there are meant to be 4 types of plants (Mizuna, Cima Rapa, Green Pak Choi and Red Mustard), I could only spot 2 different types of seedlings so it will be interesting to see what we get when they are a bit bigger!

The chillis each have a 3-inch pot of their own in the propagator now:

I kept the 8 best plants. The alpine strawberries are taking forever to germinate (left-hand tray), I only have 4 plants thus far. The right-hand tray contains leek seeds (second sowing).

The tomatoes have been moved onto a sunny windowsill. Every single seed germinated except for one of the moneymakers. However, they were only sown a week ago so it may yet put in an appearance:

Leeks, toms and peas ...

As mentioned in a previous the post, the leeks (sown on the 1st Feb) have not germinated  very well. So far, we only have 32 seedlings out of about 150 seeds sown:

Of course, we might get a few more plants but I'm not taking any chances so I've sown another tray of approx 100 seeds. In contrast, the onion seed that was sown on the same day is having a fabulous time:

Some more plants have appeared over the last few days. The tomato seed sown just four days ago is looking very promising and already beginning to germinate. Marmande is in the lead, with all three seeds having germinated. Gardeners delight is next with two seedlings followed by one seedling of each of the other varieties (sun baby, garden pearl, money-maker).

Finally, since the weather is so nice today (11 degrees) I have decided to start off some peas in loo rolls squeezed into miniature cup-cake trays:

These are Hurst Greenshaft - an early variety. I have put these into our plastic grow-house outside. It will be interesting to see how long these take to germinate!

Last year's harvest: Chilli Demon Red

Last year (before allotment-ing restarted) we grew some chilli plants outside in a little plastic greenhouse. One of the plants we grew was from a free seedling plant which came through the post (i.e. you pay postage & hopefully order lots of things with it, was from Gardener's World magazine I think) - Demon Red. This made hundreds of little fruits which are relatively hot but have little in the way of flavour.

Anyhow we have been drying a little pot of these in the airing cupboard for a couple of months & finally got around today to chopping the little hats off (boring job) and grinding them up - total harvest around 7g / 0.25oz (but that's dry weight so quite a lot of heat).

Tomato seeds planted

Now we are beginning to move towards the intense sowing season I have decided to get my tomato seeds going whilst there is still a little bit of space in the propagator. I sowed 4 seeds per 3 inch pot of 5 different varieties:

These are:

Moneymaker: A versatile salad tomato that I have grown many times before. Quite prolific even if grown outside (as is the case for me). Not a lot of flavour but great roasted.

Garden Pearl: A new-to-me small cherry variety that can be grown in hanging baskets and did well in a Gardeners World trial in terms of number of fruits and flavour. I plan to put these in hanging baskets too.

Gardeners Delight: Sweet cherry variety I have grown many times before and do well outside.

Marmande: A beefsteak variety, will be interesting to see if I can get these to ripen outside!!

Sunbaby: A yellow cherry variety also not grown before. Awarded an RHS garden of merit.

In other news the cabbage Golden Acre and cauliflower All Year Round are growing away nicely so these have been moved into our utility which is quite bright but not very warm (about 10 degrees cooler than the house).

I have also sown some more salad in compostable modules: Lollo Rosso (my daughters favourite) and red and green salad bowl mix.

Seedling race ...

First place goes to the coriander which will be ready for harvesting soon and will be a welcome addition to our sandwiches:

The purple basil is somewhat slower to get going! Both pots have now been moved out of the propagator to a sunny windowsill, but are still kept covered by a sandwich bag.

The onion seedlings have also been moved onto a windowsill and given a light haircut:

I read somewhere that you can cut the seed off the end of the young plant (which refuses to drop off in most cases) and this helps to keep the seedling more upright. The onion sets Sturon that we purchased last weekend have been planted into individual cells (118 in total).

The cabbages, cauliflowers, dill and cosmos are all up (sown 9 days ago):

I have to say I am very impressed with the cheap mixed packs of seeds ... I reckon we have had 90-100% germination rate for everything sown.

In the propagator the chillis are doing well in their pots but the leeks are slow to germinate. So far we have approx 30 leek seedlings out of about 150 seeds sown. I may end up sowing the rest of the pack if there is not much more germination:

The alpine strawberries (right-most tray) are just beginning to germinate. I have also sown another pot of coriander in the propagator. In addition, I have also sown 11 Hispi F1 cabbage Johnsons seeds in a pot on the windowsill ... thanks for the seeds dad!

At the weekend we spent some time down the allotment (see previous post) and decided to plant out some strawberry plants that dad had given us:

Dad is not sure on the variety although they are prolific fruiters. Apparently they are the runners from a strawberry plant that Alys Fowler gave him at the plant swap at Gardeners World Live several years ago! We have 16 plantlets in total. The "sticks" on the right hand side of the above pic are blackcurrant canes ... also courtesy of dad. We have 4 in total.