Last year’s chilli was a disaster – one stumpy chilli half an inch long. I blame the lack of sun. The seedlings look great. As they do this year…. I germinated them all in the growlight. Then I moved 3 of them upstairs and left 2 in the growlight – you can tell which…
I had to move the all upstairs because the mice in the kitchen were eating them. I love how green and bright their leaves are and I guess the mice do too!
I hae more than I have pots to put them in. I love them and I love how ordered and official they look. (They’re actually even bigger than this now – this was 1-2 weeks ago).
Last year, I planted these and I struggled a bit. They all germinated but came up really thickly. I didn’t pot them on properly and most of them died, then I did exactly the same thing again – and only ended up with a few good ones. None in my garden, though the ones at the Red Cross were lovely.
This year, I have been strict about pricking on and potting out. They are such tiny seeds, you still can’t get them thinly sown, but I ruthlessly moved them. I did it when they were quite dry so it was easy to separate them without everything getting sticky.
I did this on the 20th Feb – a week ago! I put half in pots in the greenhouse, and left some of them under the growlite, which are doing very well. The ones in the greenhouse are still alive!
Hopefully they will look like this…
Today I potted on some cerinthe that I got from seed from the cerinthe I grew from seed last year. They look pretty healthy already. I will leave them out unless it gets really cold and hope for the bets. I love these plants. I haven’t worked out how to keep them going from year to year but here’s hoping
I’ve also got about 6 foxgloves seedlings in pots that should be ready to do the business this summer.
I potted on some sage too. I grew this from cuttings, using the method Nemone at Core taught me – in a plastic bag and everything – and so far they are working. it feels like the circle of growing is starring again….
Well that didn’t work out as planned. It was a mixed bag.
The vegetables were a wash-out. I ended up with 2 not-very nice looking tomatoes and some chillis which never ripened (and then dried out while we were away).
The scabious never did the business. The sunflowers got eaten! The nicotiana did really well in the Red Cross garden – not so well in ours. I think it needs lots of sun and to be planted out early.
I’m confused about the Queen Anne’s Lace. I thought it was a biennial but it’s flowering here (very small flowers) and has done the business in the Red Cross garden but late.
Next year, I think I should stick to growing Coriander and salad. I always say this and I never do…
This is the only one of my scabious seedlings that has flowered. It doesn’t seem like very much for all that work.
I grew these from seed. The ones in my garden are tiny and have no flowers but I went to the Red Cross last week and look! Huge red trumpets! I think they got more sun and no snails. I’m not sure what’s in the soil but it suits them.
I’ve started gathering seeds. So far i’ve got…
I might have gathered the poppies a bit early (I got them from the Other Garden when the foxes ran through it). Also been overly keen on gathering the Cerinthe but I grew it last year and I wanted to make sure I had it again.
So far I have kept them in envelopes in the kitchen. Maybe start thinking about planting them when we get back from Cawsand….
This is not something I really know anything about it.
I would say mixed so far. I have…
On the whole, I would say
All the poppies in the other garden got knocked over by foxes or drunks. So I cut them down and tied them in bunches. Then I tied them to the mobile in the kitchen, so they could dry out. I felt like Elizabeth Bennet drying lavender.
I thought this would take a couple of weeks but what happened was almost immediately they started spilling poppy seeds onto the kitchen table and it was incredibly difficult to untie them from the mobile and while I was doing that most of the seed came out. So I’m not doing that again.
This year, all my sweet peas are grown from seed gathered from plants I bought from Sarah Raven last year. There were 3 kinds and they’ve grown in 3 ways:
They are a mixed bag. The ones that grew by themselves are the strongest. I thought they might be wild everlasting sweet peas when they came up as they were so robust in the winter but one has purple and blue flowers and one blue.
Some are doing okay. They’re not AS good as Sarah Raven grown ones, but they’re not a disaster.
Some are spindly and weedy and totally failing to thrive. I don’t know why. I’ve fed and watered them. Some don’t get much sun (as they are so small – lots of sun higher up) but some do. The internet suggests it’s pretty hard to fail with sweet peas and has no ideas.
I don’t seem to have any of the red ones. And not many of the blue. I wonder if the spindly ones are red ones? Or if the spindly ones are across all types but lacking something? More thought needed.
The seeds grew into little plants! The greenhouse is full and most of them aren’t quite ready to plant-out but they are getting there. I feel a sense of quiet satisfaction!
I have learnt some things. It is a lot of work. And you need an exit strategy – you can’t stop once they’ve germinated. They need potting on and potting on; and the right amount of water; and hardening off. It’s a conveyor belt and getting them through the first stage is just the start.
And potting-on is a LOT more complicated than Monty Don lets on and they don’t just come out with a little push and lovely rootball. Things to remember:
It doesn’t help that I don’t really know what everything is! The Queen Anne’s lace is doing well, as is the Greek oregano (a third in heavy soil, a third in sandy soil, a third not done yet). The scabious (or is it nicotiana?) I did first and doing okay. I’ve only just done the nicotiana (or scabious?), which I did all the wrong things to (see above) is alive now, but will it be tomorrow?
Here is a picture of my greenhouse which looks like a full cupboard.
I’m going to try and grow some of this too.
Things I know so far: 5+ hours of direct sunlight a day.
I got some from Vital Seeds – who I read about in The Garden and who sell organic seed. They came in a lovely package and made me feel green fingered just opening it.
I have planted them in the growlight. I am sceptical they will come up this early but we will see…..
They have come up! They look all perky. We’ll see.
I could not love my chillis more. It’s going to get warmer next week so I will put them out then.
I don’t think it’s going to end well. I put them in the greenhouse and then hardened them off. When we had some sun in the Spring, I moved them round the garden so they got as much sun as possible. But it has been a terrible summer. Every time there has been a ray of sunshine, they’ve tried to flower but the rain comes in and strips them off. They’ve gone weirdly bushy, and as they haven’t set any fruit, I can’t see them growing any chillis. Maybe next year…
Well, that didn’t work brilliantly. I blame the weather.
This winter I bought a mini green house. I got a Grozone and it is fab.
It’s light but sturdy and very well made. It’s on the roof terrace outside our bedroom. When it rains in the night I can hear the water hitting it and it’s like being dry in a tent when it’s raining outside, only nicer.
My plan is to move it down to the garden for the Spring – or maybe even take it down all together until the autumn.
Here it is on January 5th 2021
I am growing Salad Burnet! Who knew? I thought it was something else.
The first wildflowers seed mix had some and they were prolific(!) in the Other Garden and were the most lovely plant. I took the seeds and sowed them in a drawer and they came up (I think that’s them). Lessons
1 Label stuff
2 If you cut SB back, it comes again. The flowers are really beautiful.
3. Apparently you can use it in salad and it tastes of cucumber according to the Woodland Trust
4. I potted it on 27th December!. The drawer I planted them in was quite shallow and the roots were very widely spread. If you scooped straight down with a spoon, that still didn’t get them. Maybe this is true of a lot of wild plants that grow in places that aren’t very rich – they spread a lot.
QUESTION: how will they adapt to better soil? The soil in the Other Garden is very poor because it’s under a tree and no-one has fed it for decades. How will they do in my richer garden? Maybe plant some in pots and some in old crap soil
6, QUESTION: how good is the soil in MY garden? (and does it matter/ is it better if it’s not great?)
January 2021
Here they are in the greenhouse…
I am growing this from seed – the first time I’ve grown something in the Autumn, not the Spring. I LOVE cerinthe and I bought 4 from Sarah Raven last year. That and sweet peas were the only flowers I got all summer. But they never thrive in my garden. They are spindly and disappear.
I took seed from these at the end of the summer and planted them in September in an old wooden drawer. They all came up! I potted these on. I love them because they look like plants are supposed to look like when you pot them on. All springing upright.
They are now a couple of leaves tall and in my new “greenhouse”. Nemone from Gardening Club says they will live through the winter if I keep them sheltered, maybe just tucked inside other plants. I wonder what will happen to them….
January 2021
Here they are in the “greenhouse”. Don’t they look lovely.
My Garden 