Finally Warm Enough To Plant Some Vegetables

The weather has finally improved enough for me to plant some seedlings outside, you can hardly see them in the picture as they are still so small, but I've planted Spinach Tomatoes and Little Gem Lettuce so far. I've also planted some marigolds around the tomatoes as they help to deter pests. I still have Broccoli and Cabbages to plant next month.
The bucket of weeds you can see is all the weeds I've had to clear off the plot I'm using, I want to grow organically so I'm not going to use weedkiller.
Luckily I got a new gardening book that explained what hoe is actually for ( I thought they were just for breaking up the soil) you can break the roots off weeds as you get them out, hopefully stopping them coming back too quickly.
I've joined goodreads.com and will be publishing more book reviews soon so keep reading :)

Finally Planted Seeds For This Years Veg.

After the success I had last year with tomatoes and the success over the last couple of years with Chilli's, I decided I wanted to try growing a few more things this year. It's been so cold however I have waited until now to plant my seeds, and I am still having to use a heated propagator, I hope the weather gets better by the time the plants are big enough to go out.
If you like me are using a heated propagator don't make the same mistake I did last night and use non permanent pen to write your labels. When I woke up this morning most of them had blurred beyond readability. I should be able to work out what they say and rewrite them with a biro later, other wise I will be in a terrible muddle when the seedlings start to sprout as many of the seedlings will look quite similar.

This year I am growing "Tumbling Tom" and Gardeners Delight" tomatoes again as I got so many tomatoes last year from these two plants. I have also planted "F1 Bella Spinach" and "Little Gem Lettuce", I'm going to try growing the lettuce in my window box with a "Tumbling Tom" plant just to see how they do together. I've also planted "Christmas Drumhead Cabbage" and "Nine Star Perennial Broccoli" which is supposed to come back year after year and produce lots of heads.

I've also got some interesting new Chilli's that I'm growing for the first time this year, their names are a link to a site with pictures of them so you can see the unusual colours some of them are. I'm growing "Purple Tiger" which are purple (obviously), and "Black Pearl" which actually grow black before turning red and have lovely looking foliage. There's also "Numex Twilight" which grow pink purple orange and white! (not a great picture of the plant showing all it's different colours). And finally the better known (and bloody hot) "Scotch Bonnets" and I got a mixed bag so I should get a few different shades (the variety I have look like the yellow ones nearer the top of that page) .

I'll publish more pictures throughout the year as the plants grow, hopefully the Chilli's will go well and I'll have some good photo's of them.

Starting Winter Lettuce And Spinach

I've finally got a plot to grow vegetables in from the adopt a garden scheme they are running locally. It's a bit late in the season but I got a packet of winter lettuce with a gardening magazine I buy and am starting some spinach. The lettuce seeds are coming up (you can see three in the back row) but the spinach seeds haven't done anything yet, it's only been a 2 days though so something is bound to happen soon.

I sent off for some new chilli seeds today I've ordered a mixture of "Scotch Bonnet" seeds as the TV chefs seem to keep going on about them so I want to see what all the fuss is about. I also chose variety that gives multicoloured chilli's called "Numex Twilight" the chilli's grow yellow orange and red as well as purple according to the photo's. I'm getting a variety that grows purple chilli's called "Purple Tiger" as well, and variety that has dark leaves and the chilli's grow black before turning red called "Black Pearl".

I can't wait it's time to strat growing them again as I'm really getting into growing chilli's, I'm amazed by how many varieties there are and how ornamental the plants can be.

Good Results From Tumbling Tom Tomatoes.

  Plants looking very dry

I've grown 2 varieties of tomato this year one called Tumbling Tom and the other one I got free with a magazine called Gardeners Delight. Tumbling Tom Are dwarf plants designed to grow in containers and Gardeners delight are a normal sized variety.

I wish I had used larger containers for the Tumbling Toms now as the plants keep getting blown over and I don't tend to visit the garden they are in for a few days at a time so they've been laying on their sides quite a lot of the time. They also kept drying out but despite this I'm still getting loads of nice cherry sized tomatoes off them every time I go down to check on them and give them some water. So I highly recommend them if you are short of time for watering etc, I just fed them about once a week and they gave me lots of tomatoes even when left dry and on their sides.


This is just what I picked last Saturday along with one of the chilli's I've been growing outside this year. The two chilli plants that are there are ones that I grew last year that survived and are still growing chilli's now, some of them have started growing red too not grown green then ripened to red which seems unusual.

Different varieties Tumbling Tom Seeds available on Amazon now.

And Girls, check out "The Girl's Guide To Grow Your Own"

 

Windswept looking Chilli Plant 

 

Harvested my second lot of peas.

The first lot went into the macaroni cheese recipe I give below before I had a chance to photograph them. They are marrowfat peas so get quite big and I was impressed by the flavour last time I had them really sweet and nothing like what you buy in shops. You don't get many in a pod though what's there will probably only be sufficient for one meal for 2 people so you'd have to grow a lot of plants to get a really significant amount.

More Pictures Of The Vegetables, And Possibly The Most Ironic Birds Nest In The UK?

I keep forgetting to take my camera down so I've taken some photo's with my mobile phone today, surprisingly they don't look too bad.

The Tumbling Toms are really bushing out now I'm impressed by how well they are doing, hopefully I'll get a lot of tomatoes from them, there's also a photo of the first fruit I've seen growing below


The peas are flowering nicely with several pods developing (or do you call them fruits I don't know) there's also a close up of one or two of the pods below.


And here are some pictures of possibly the most ironic birds nest in the UK, there's a pair of pigeons nesting on a recently placed pigeon net (designed to keep them out) just outside my bathroom window.

I know they are also known as flying rats and are supposed to spread disease, but it's still heart warming to watch the babies growing. There are two birds taking turns to sit on them, they literally sit right on them the babies, their backs are really flat as if designed for this. I assume the two birds are the mother and father but am not sure, I don't know how pigeon society works.

My Progress With The Vegetables So Far.

I've been so busy with other things I haven't had time to photograph the progress my vegetables are making for my blog until today, and they all look a bit wind swept so it probably wasn't the best one for it. Above you can see my marrow fat peas which are growing very fast now I keep having to add new sticks every couple of days.


And here are two of my Tumbling Tom plants which are starting to flower now so I will hopefully see some tomatoes soon.



This quite forlorn looking patch is where my cauliflowers will go, and you can see the "Gardeners Delight" Tomatoes along the wall at the back, they still seem very small though, I've just started feeding them so hopefully they will get bigger. At the front of the bed there are some more of the tumbling tom plants and a chilli plant in containers, the chilli survived from last year where I kept indoors and is now flowering up again so hopefully will produce some more chilli's.

I'm very busy with the arrangements for the renaissance festival this week, I'm going to be doing tarot readings in the enchanted realm so I need to get some practice in as I haven't done it for a while. My costume isn't ready so I may end up making what was meant to be a dress into a skirt and wearing a blouse with it.

Been Busy

I've been busy with all the plants I'm growing this week, I've put two of the Tumbling Tom Plants in a window box on my kitchen windowsill pictured above. Two more are in containers down the road in Vinny's Garden, along with the gardeners delight Tomato plants I have still waiting to go in the ground when we decide where to put them.

I've also planted some dwarf marrow fat peas straight into the ground in Vinny's Garden and they are coming up quite well without too much slug and snail damage.



The Satan's kiss chilli's have done really well and need re potting already, I also now have some Basil coming up and some marigolds to plant near the tomatoes to help keep pests away.

Plants Doing Well

The Tomatoes are doing well and I have now have a good few "Satan's Kiss" chilli plants too, the picture of above is of a few of them n the left are the Tomatoes and on the right are the Chilli's.

I've used Cut down 2 pint milk containers mainly as pots for the plants as they get bigger as I've found they are an ideal size, and of course they are free and it's recycling.

I'm keeping the tops of the milk containers too to use as frost protectors for some pea's I've sown outside I'll post about how well that works when it happens.

Potted On The Tomatoes, And Link Exchanges Wanted.

The tumbling tom seeds I planted have come on well so I put them into their own pots, I need to do the same with the gardeners delight seeds I've planted too but don't have enough containers yet. I used cut down 2 pint milk containers to pot on the tumbling toms mainly I'll be using them and yoghurt pots for the Gardeners Delight.

I've also just cleaned up my blogroll and would like to exchange links with a few people if you're interested leave me a comment with a link to the blog you want me to add to my blogroll and I'll add it.

More Seedlings Have Come Up

My seedlings are coming up in force now, nearly all my tomatoes are up it will soon be time to put them in their individual pots. The "Satan's Kiss Chilli's" are slower to come up only 2 so far but it does say they can take up to 10 days, I've also sewn some more chilli seeds I got free with Grow It magazine this month.
As you can see I'm using yoghurt pots and the old plastic trays meat comes in mainly at the moment. I've also found a slightly cut up and flattened out foil take away tray makes a brilliant reflector to stop the seedlings reaching towards the sun too much.

Today I found my first seedling had sprouted, it is a chilli plant of an Italian variety called "Satan's Kiss", which despite the name apparently produces chilli's that are only medium hot. I was relieved actually I was worried I had planted the seeds too deep and they were just rotting, but if this ones sprouted hopefully the others will follow over the next couple of days.

Today I also sowed some tomato seeds as we have some grow bags to fill, I've sown 2 varieties "Tumbling Tom" a dwarf variety you can grow in containers or hanging baskets or even indoors, and an outdoor one called "Gardeners Delight." hopefully they will start sprouting after about 7 days.

Growing My Own Vegetables Again This Year

Sorry about the terrible lack of posts I promise to get back into posting regularly soon I've just got addicted to facebook applications recently and find little time for anything else.
With the credit crunch making us all need to tighten our purse strings it seems like a good idea to grow some of our own vegetables this year. Last year I grew Chilli's and they were very successful so I've decided to go for some different vegetables this year as well.
Tonight I've been looking on Ebay at what seeds are on offer. There are loads of variety's of chilli's on there I'm going to get some called Satan's kiss that sound great and are an unusual shape and some jalepeno's.
I've also seen some great tomato seeds you grow in hanging baskets that give loads of fruit and some really big pumpkins. I also liked the sound of the purple cauliflowers similar to the ones I saw Jamie Oliver cooking and purple carrots. So there should be lots more photo's of all the stages of growth similar to last year with the chilli's to come if all goes well.
I'm not sure I'll have room to grow all of those plants but I'm going to try anyway I can always give some plants away.

I've Been Gardening

I finally had the Ivy that was blocking so much light from my back garden cut down and have revealed a lovely stone wall that was concealed before. I'm now left with a huge pile of Ivy cuttings shown above.



The wall underneath it is very old and has some strange types of stone in it that we couldn't identify. I also managed to capture a picture of a bird unexpectadly he was just sat on the shed eating something and didn't fly away for a while when I came out to catch these pictures before it got dark.