Saturday 24 April 2010

Lots of seedlings growing very nicely

So here are my seedlings which are all doing really well expecially as most of them were in a greenhouse which blew over and the seeds and seedlings were scraped up and repotted!!A tray of mixed lettuce and rocket seedlings - these will be planted in the allotment when they are a bit bigger and I grow cut and come again in the greenhouse
Courgettes - 4 varieties and I will grow 2 of each and give the rest away to friends
Sweetcorn - First time I've got Sweetcorn to germinate - I had to buy plants last year
Basil - Cinamen - I'm also growing Lemon and Spice
My biggest Cucumber so far - some rotted so I have various different sizes and 2 varieties - Marketmore, which I grew last year and were fantastic and Bedfordshire Prize which I have been a bit disappointed with the germination rate

Peppers - Sweet and Chilli - quite slow to get going. I'm still eating my last years Chilli's, which I froze and like to chop one into small slices and add to and omlett....Delicious
More tomatoes
Some of my many Tomatoes

Sunday 18 April 2010

Parsnip experiment update....

Of all three experiments mentioned earlier I have not had 1 seed germinate!!!! I'm putting this down to the fact that the seeds were best before 01/2010, but on the plus side my son got given a packet of new seeds by his grandparents so I'm planning to nick some of his and plant them straight into the ground!

Monday 12 April 2010

Today I dug up a Fox!!!!!!!



Today I was planting my new strawberry plants in a part of the allotment that I had dug over on Saturday. Well I thought I would give a small area a quick dig over and this is what I dug up!!!! A fox cub and it was pretty disgusting I can tell you. So how did it get there? Was it buried by an adult fox, a fellow allotmentier or did someone plant a fox seed some time ago and it has grown this big so far?

Sunday 11 April 2010

Parsnip Experiment

Having read an interesting chitting post on another blog I have been reading a lot about parsnips having never grown them before. It seems that parsnips can only be grown from fresh seed and that they take forever to germinate hence the fascination with chitting. So having read lot's of different ideas I have decided to try two of those ideas and one idea of my own. Trial A has seen me get a plastic container from the re-cycling and cover the bottom with damp kitchen roll, spread the seeds on the top and then mist the seeds and cover with clingfilm. These seeds have then been placed in my conservatory on the sill above the radiator (this is my very best germination spot). Trial B was to get a clear sandwich box and again cover the bottom with moist kitchen roll, spread the seeds on the top and then place the lid on the sandwich box and then place in the airing cupboard. Then Trial C is an idea I got from plan B, you see although parsnip seeds need to be fresh you still get 300 per packet! So you get a lot left over to experiment with and so I have decided that I will try to germinate some in my sprouter. I usually use this for growing mung beans so I thought why not try parsnips. The seeds are currently soaking overnight and will then go in the sprouter on a tear below some mung beans. Will it work? Find out when I bring the results in about a weeks time.