Giving up on growing from seed

Almost none of the dozens of seeds I planted a few weeks ago have germinated. Our conservatory is just too hot on the hot days, and I think they baked rather than thriving, but if we put them outdoors the birds get them. So I officially give up on growing from seed, for this year anyway.

Pride put aside, I went down to the garden centre today and spent $30 on:

• nine green beans (bush, not climbing)
• six Early Girl tomatoes
• more red onions, white onions, and spring onions than I can count
• six Drunken Woman lettuce
• six Tom Thumb lettuce
• six dill
• six celery

I think I got my money's worth anyway! Let's hope they all grow and thrive in our garden.

Six tiny Early Girl tomato plants

There are reasons for my selection of green beans (which I dislike) and dill (a herb I've never knowingly used). The beans are to go in the bed between the potatoes and the cucumbers -- apparently those two plants do not like each other, but they both like beans, so I'm hoping the beans will act as a buffer zone. And the dill is also a companion plant to encourage our sweetcorn to thrive. I'm also planting climbing beans in among the sweetcorn plants, to take advantage of the natural climbing frame provided by the cornstalks, and to add nitrogen to the soil.

Green beans planted between the cucumbers and the potatoes

The onions are also companion plants, but at least I know I'll eat those! Onions benefit strawberries and make them taste more strawberry-y. Our strawberries last year were absolutely delicious, so I think onions are definitely good for them. Let's hope the trend continues.

Strawberries and tiny onions

Germinating like crazy

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, but that does not indicate a lack of progress. The weather isn't settled enough to plant much outside yet, but in the conservatory I have many little seeds germinating quite happily. Here's what I have growing indoors:

• tomatoes (Better Boy, Early Girl, Green Zebra, Moneymaker)
• peppers (California Wonder, Yellow Banana, Purple Beauty, Chocolate Beauty)
• sweetcorn
• lettuce
• cucumber
• and a variety of flowers, including gilia, cornflower, larkspur, swan plants, and many others that I've currently forgotten.

There are seed potatoes waiting for the current wet weather to pass before I plant them in bags outside:

• Purple Heart
• Ilam Hardy
• Red Rascal
• Agria
  

Planted outside are some slightly hardier crops:

• red onions
• leeks
• spring onions
• radishes
• lettuce
• strawberries
• raspberries
• broccoli
• spinach
• silverbeet

Those last two belong to my husband, who has his own beds to look after this year. I am taking the very organised pre-planned approach, and he's taking the approach of, "Plant what seems like a good idea at the time, wherever it fits," so it'll be interesting to see which of us produces better food!

I also spent about $80 setting out the start of our irrigation system. It'll cost us maybe the same again to finish it, but that should make things a lot easier for us this summer. The system won't cover all the plants but it'll cover the raised beds and leave the neighbours with a lot less to water for us if we go away for a weekend here and there!

Of course, not all the vegetables will fit in the raised beds, not by a long shot. I'm going to need at least eight tubs for some of the tomatoes and all the peppers. We had no luck with peppers last year because it wasn't quite warm enough for them, so I'm going to keep those in the conservatory and see if that improves things. Just need to find the space for them first!

Mould!

I just noticed that the five tubs of seed mixture that I have in the living room (pansy, lavender, and sweet pepper) have gone MOULDY and are covered in white fluffy stuff. Yuck. I've never seen this happen before! I've got no idea what's going on - I'm pretty sure I haven't been over-watering them, but I can't think of what else might have caused it.

For the moment, I've moved them all to the sunny windowsill rather than the rather darker corner behind the curtains. If it persists, I'll probably have to throw them out. The first casualties of summer 2009 and they didn't even get a chance to germinate. Bah.

There's life in the lettuce patch!

The winter lettuces are starting to germinate! Five tiny seedlings are starting to poke their heads up above the soil. Hopefully there'll be another three to follow in the next day or two, since I planted eight seeds, but we'll see.


In other news, I planted some more flower seeds today, indoors in seed raising mix. They are in the conservatory and also inside a covered mini germinator, which should keep them fairly cosy. I planted five each of these seeds:

• nigella
• meadowfoam
• hollyhock (not sure what type - these seeds were donated by a friend)
• nicotiana (tinkerbells)
• stock (dwarf 10 week)
• dianthus (black and white minstrels)
• dianthus (rainbow loveliness)
• dichondra (silver falls)

Those that successfully germinate will be planted indoors for the time being, although some of them are destined for the new flower bed outside when the weather warms up.

More seeds planted

This is probably not very interesting for anyone to read, but I figure it'll be a good record for me and might help me figure out what works in future. I planted some more indoor seeds today: pansies and lavender. I'm trying to produce some lavender plants to grow down our driveway, but apparently it can be quite difficult to grow from seed so I shouldn't get my hopes up.


I was going to leave them in the conservatory beside the lettuce (in the square tubs above) but it gets really cold out there at night. The flower pots are now in the corner of our living room beside the Jingle Bell pepper seeds, where they get sunshine during the day and some heat from us during the evening.

First seeds planted

About a week ago I planted some winter lettuce seed in a couple of pots in the conservatory. They haven't sprouted yet but I hope they will do so within the next week or so. The tubs are filled with Mel's Mix, and temperatures in the conservatory are above freezing at night and very warm during the day if the sun's out, so I'm hoping that'll be a nice combination for the little lettuce seeds.

Yesterday I planted four Jingle Bells pepper seeds in a tub (filled with seed raising mix) which is currently in our living room. The temperatures here are more stable than in the conservatory, with less extreme differences between night and day. Hopefully they will germinate. The Jingle Bells peppers are miniature fruits on a plant suitable for growing indoors. We had no luck with our pepper plants growing outside last summer - from about a dozen plants, we got one solitary green pepper - so this year they are all going to be indoors. I've already got some larger tubs to use outside in the conservatory, and I've ordered more seeds (Chocolate Beauty, which has brown fruit, and California Wonder which should result in red peppers when ripe) so hopefully we'll have a bit of variety. Having said that, I'd just be glad to have something we can eat at the end of it all!

Oh, and I scattered some California poppy seeds along the edge of our driveway. It's not really the right time of year for planting poppy seeds but the worst that can happen is that they don't grow. It'd be lovely if they did, though, because the driveway is very bare in places at the moment. We did plant some small shrubs, hebes of various kinds, but it'll be a long time before they grow big enough to merge together. Poppies would be lovely in the meantime.