Allotmenting:: And so it begins ::

The seeds arrived a couple of weeks ago now, but with the arrival of some of the live plants this week, I really started to get going on this years growing season. Oh my, it is awfully exciting, so much hope and expectation in each tiny little seed.

I purchased the majority of my seeds from these guys this year, and they certainly look fabulous (obviously I can't vouch for the seeds themselves yet, having only just sown a few of them). The packaging is really nice, simple, but comes with great information, and even instructions on how to save next years seed from this years crop, brilliant.

I purchased too many to list here, but some of my favourites are the atomic red carrots, black plum tomatoes and squashes, but there really are lots I'm looking forward to growing.

This week I've sown, a windowsill full of herbs, (I've been slack with fresh herbs recently and really there is no excuse not to have a least a pot of basil in the kitchen) cauliflower, perpetual spinach, alpine strawberries, aubergines (3 varieties, this is surely a little ambitious as none of mine worked last year!) asparagus and leeks.

The plants that arrived this week came from Thompson Morgan, they include, black currant, white currant and red currant canes, honeyberry plugs and a variety of potatoes, I've also got some Jerusalem artichoke tubers arriving from these guys.

It's only January and I'm already feeling a little overwhelmed, I best get myself down that allotment and digging!

April 26th 2010...

...today I have...

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!