Thursday 13 May 2010

Trusses and violas!

I have some of my first trusses appearing on my tomato plants!


tomato trusses

So exciting!


tomato trusses

I also bought myself a few violas today.


violas

I am completely in love with the black molly sanderson's.



Johnny feels growing flowers is wasted time and space (which is of course nonsense) so I am restricting myself to only edible flowers!



Monday 26 April 2010

April 26th 2010...

...today I have...

April 25th 2010

Planted some new potatoes and earthed up the old ones which, from above the soil at least, look like their doing really well.


April 25th 2010

And discovered a little yellow flower on one of my cucumber plants! 

April 25th 2010

This is very exciting indeed, especially as two of my cucumber plants were moved outside when we literally ran out of room inside and unfortunately have not survived.


April 25th 2010

Sunday 25 April 2010

tomatoes...

Tomatoes

...so when I did all my research on growing tomatoes there were a couple of things I forgot to investigate. Mainly, how big will my plants grow, how successful will my seeds be, how many plants can I really look after/fit in our small terraced house and very small outside space??



The answer to the final question would probably have been, 4, maybe 6 at a push.  How many do actually have? Hmmmm about 30.


Tomatoes

I guess those little seeds just looked so, well little-I had no idea how well they would grow.


Tomatoes

So currently I have set up a little space for them in the utility room where I have housed 18 of them.  6 are remaining on the most sun filled windowsills in the house and the rest have gone outside.  A little early I know but there simply is no room left indoors for them.



I'm dreaming of making lots of sauces and ketchup and chutneys come the end of the summer!



Saturday 24 April 2010

a very busy month...

...so I have been fairly terrible at keeping this up to date! In fact completely useless and it has been well over a month since I have blogged!

I have however been super busy planting seeds and tending to the seedlings and my terrace is beginning to look lovely indeed.

I currently have growing...


  • tomatoes (a LOT of them)

  • cucumber

  • spinach

  • carrots

  • onions

  • garlic

  • strawberries

  • various lettuce leaves

  • beetroot

  • cauliflower

  • cabbage

  • chilli peppers

  • yellow bell peppers

  • sweet peppers

  • basil (green and purple)

  • oregano

  • thyme

  • coriander

  • parsley

  • mint

  • potatoes


Wow it looks like a lot when you write the list out like that.  As you can imagine my windowsills are looking very full at the moment.  I have set up a little table in the utility room in order to free up a little space but have still had to relocate some of the cucumbers, tomatoes and pepper plants outside-some are doing surprisingly well, others are suffering horribly.

I've also spent a small fortune on pots and compost-which has led me to look into vermicomposting.  As we certainly don't have room for a proper composter I think this will be a good compromise until I move in to a dream house with a huge garden.  If anyone has any experience of this I would love to hear about it.

I really want to keep a better track of my seedlings so promise I will be a more regular blogger from now on!



Thursday 4 March 2010

March 4th 2010...

...today I have...


gardening 04.03.10




  • planted some strawberry runners (with a little help and advice from some lovely twitter peeps)

  • purchased some seed potatoes and also a bag to grow them in, however the bag is way too big, not too tall but too wide, it won't fit where I want it to without causing a massive obstruction!

  • sown some spinach seeds


gardening 04.03.10

I also have another little sprout!  This time it's the green basil-which looks fairly massive compared to the little purple basil sprouts!


gardening 04.03.10

Despite then fact majority of my pots are still inside on sunny window sills looking after little seeds, the terrace is starting to look fairly good! I can't wait for that whole space to be full up with pots and plants!


gardening 04.03.10





Wednesday 3 March 2010

Sprouts!

gardening 03.03.10

OK so only some very small ones and only purple basil and mustard, but it's still very exciting!


gardening 03.03.10
gardening 03.03.10

I've also taken a few pictures of the terrace in the midst of it's gardening make over.



This is the end that is all lovely and tidy and clear...


gardening 03.03.10

and this is the other end where all the pots and rubbish have been moved to!


gardening 03.03.10

Eventually of course it will all be lovely and tidy and clear and full of wonderful healthy plants!



These are the bulbs that are popping up, I'm not sure what they are yet-can't wait for them to flower.


gardening 03.03.10

And this funny looking mini palm tree is actually the remnants of a parsley plant I rescued from a pot that had been up on the terrace since last summer.  It had such a big thick trunk I thought it might be worth trying to revive it. I've repotted it and taken off all the dead and dying leaves and I have my fingers crossed for it's progress.


gardening 03.03.10

what I sowed on march 1st...

...yesterday I  sowed a few more seeds....






  • chives

  • red pear tomatoes

  • orange berry tomatoes

  • costoluto florentino tomatoes

  • tigerella tomatoes

  • ildi tomatoes

  • san marzano tomatoes

  • cucumber

  • hot chilli

  • thyme

  • mustard 


gardening 01.03.10

I put the cucumber, thyme and chilli under a propagator and put some cling film on top of the chive pot but the rest are open and all are currently sitting on various window sills around the house.  Milo and I go round every morning after breakfast watering those that need it and looking out for sprouts-so far there are none at all, even the mustard seeds don't seem to be doing anything yet. Of course it's still very early to be hoping to see anything I'm sure.


gardening 01.03.10

Today, whilst Milo had a super long nap (due to being up most of the night!), I started work on clearing the roof terrace.  It still had the very sad remnants of last years failed gardening up there.  I now have a lot of pots ready for new plants and quite a lot more space than I remembered there being.  I also have a few bulbs starting to emerge from pots that were left up there by the previous owners, which I'm looking forward to.


gardening 01.03.10



Monday 1 March 2010

new seeds and pots...

Milo and I headed out in the beautiful spring sunshine today to get ourselves some more seeds and pots.  After a lot of time spent picking up various seed packets and after a lot of old ladies had come to admire Milo we finally headed off with our new investments.


spring!

I now have...




  • 6 types of tomato

  • thyme

  • chive

  • spring onion

  • cucumber

  • mustard

  • rocket

  • spinach


...seeds to sow.



Hopefully they will find themselves in pots/seed trays by the end of today-as long as the little one has a nice long nap!



I was oh so close to buying some seed potatoes but was under the impression they needed very very deep pots to live in, however my sister tells me they don't need to be as deep as I imagined, so they are very much top of my list next time I find myself down the garden centre.



Saturday 27 February 2010

sowing seeds...

I've had a couple fairly disastrous attempts at gardening over the past couple of years, but despite that I'm going to give it another go!  As I'm actually on time for starting this year (something that may have been biggest problem in the past) and as I'm at home most of everyday now, I figure this year should be much more successful than the years gone by!


gardening 26.02.10

This blog is mostly an opportunity to keep a track of my progress, to keep a record of what I planted when and how well it is doing!  But please feel free to add your own comments and follow me on my gardening adventure!  I don't actually have a garden as such, but I'm not going to let that stand in my way!  I have a very small patio area, a (dangerous for a crawling baby) roof terrace, a few window sills and quite a lot of pots, I'm hoping that will be enough for now!


gardening 26.02.10

Yesterday I sowed the following...




  • coriander

  • basil

  • purple basil

  • parsley

  • oregano

  • sweet pepper


I also watered the much neglected little chilli seedling (that seems to have been a seedling for quite a few months now, probably caused by the neglect) and an aloe vera plant I picked up somewhere, and placed them all on the lovely sunny windowsill in my lounge where hopefully there everyday presence will remind me to keep them watered and healthy!


gardening 26.02.10

I've covered each of the pots with seeds in it, with clingfilm, I read somewhere that would work as a little green house.  It's worked well for me in the past when planting seeds.

Wish me (and them) luck! x