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!

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!

March 4th 2010...

...today I have...

• 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

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

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!

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 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!

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