Weekend Photos - New Additions

Above are some baby chilli plants from Angela - these will live inside I think and should make for some lovely spicy dinners

Two new variants of tomato plant - one of these is the massive beefsteak variety :D

And some of my own additions - on the left we have courgettes coming through and on the right my second (far more sensible) sowing of runner beans.

Of Beans and Peas

Now that my little plants are growing well I've been thinking about what do with them so I hopped on the net to look for some guidance.

My first lesson was that just because the seeds like kind of similar it doesn't mean that the plants grow in the same conditions!  I'd kind of assumed that because the seeds are kind of similar and peas are quite like beans that they must grow in the same way and thus I planted them all at the same time.  I should have checked what the bean packet meant when it said to plant 'mid spring'... seems dumb now but that obviously meant April/May not Feb/March!

So the peas should be fine as they like cooler weather, as should the broad beans but I appear to have planted the runner beans about 2 months earlier than I should have!  I'm not giving up on them yet but they may become unmanageably large before it's safe to let them out into the garden... we shall see.  I shall probably plant some more at the proper time; a nice backup in case these fail or an interesting comparison if they don't.

I planted all my peas/beans into the same little modular trays that I used for the tomato seed; in hindsight this may not have been the best plan... I can't believe how sturdy the little peas/beans are; such lovely thick stems... such active root systems.  I've potted them all on into 8cm peat pots today which will hopefully keep them going until the garden is ready for them but I had to do a fair bit more coaxing of roots out of the drainage holes than I expected.

From what I've seen the mange-tout's have fairly delicate stems and put down thready, wandering roots (which built their own network under the modules), they came out nice and easy but left all their soil behind.

Pea Seedling

The broad beans have very thick white roots which seemed to head straight down in a nice neat fan pattern; oddly there didn't seem to be any particular correlation between root length and plant size.

Broad Bean Seedling

The runner beans have crazy strong roots and took all their soil with them when they came, they also tended to put their main root through the drainage hole; longer roots definitely went with bigger plants.

Runner Bean Seedling

Amazingly every single seed I planted germinated; I originally planted loads of seeds to allow for my tendency to kill small things with alarming skill.  I guess it'll be a day or so until I see if I've inflicted any lasting harm on my plants by transferring them into the new pots, hopefully they'll make it but I wouldn't be surprised if a few are a little shocked from the transition.

Pictures from http://www.sciencephoto.com/ as my camera battery was dead!

The Mystery Plant....

It's getting more mysterious by the day!  The mystery plants have started flowering and I still have no idea what they are... but they're very pretty :D

I wanna know what it is already!

The green beans are also starting to bloom and putting out some gorgeous red buds

The strawberries are being cursed by their own success; unfortunately as the strawberries get plumper they weigh down the stems supporting them and several have bent over the edge of the plastic pockets damaging the plant so that nutrients aren't getting through and the stem (and strawberries :o) die.  I think I need to rig some curved protectors so they don't damage themselves but for now this cunning arrangement of canes will have to do!

On the plus side they're putting out runners like crazy and as long as I can keep them healthy I should have a truly ridiculous number of strawberry plants next year!

All grown up

My little plants are getting all grown up now and showing signs of fruiting. I imagine I'll get used to it over time but at the moment I still get a lovely sense of wonder when I look out of the back door and see my drab stone patio covered in lovely vibrant growing things!

Just a quick post today but here are some photos of the growing that's been going on:

No sign of fruit yet but it's definately getting 'bushier'

These little guys are growing so well I had to tie on extra canes to keep them going... if they get much taller I'm going to need a ladder to harvest them tho ;p

Apparently Rhubarb does just fine in pots - that leaf at the bottom is easily 3 dinner plates in size!

Even the latecomers are getting on well - this is the Raspberry cane that used to just be a stick!

It's growing well... and I still have no idea what it is!

I think 'Yummmmm' about covers this one

The tomatoes seem to have recovered from their brush with the frost but I think I need to seperate them out a bit more; at the moment they look rather like one mega-plant!

Oh Dear.... My poor indoor tomato had a nasty run in with the wind - it was a lot more spindly that the outside tomatoes and got knocked over :(  It's now tied to the fence and shortly after this picture I removed all the broken limbs... poor thing looks a little bare now but I'm hopeful it might make it through as the top is still growing nicely.

It seems I forgot to take a photo of the potatoes but they too are thriving - bushy greens are now springing out of the top of the grow bag and i've banked it up with compost to the top. Tasty taties are anticipated!

New Arrivals

These are the beans John, from my mum's office, gave to my dad to grow in his garden and which dad gave to me 'cos he didn't have room for them!  A welcome addition to my little vegetable collection these guys are inhabiting the tower pots which we brought with us from the old house.  I've given them a fresh lot of compost to grow into and some nice tall canes to grow up - hopefully I can train them up the fence when they get bigger as I think they're going to outgrow their canes fairly rapidly if dad's are anything to go by!