Sunday in the Garden

Sunday for me, was all about the garden, the allotment and food growing.  The weather was great and I couldn't go to my usual Sunday morning class as it was full and some of the roads were blocked due to a local half marathon going on. I decided to stay put and potter outside, getting a few jobs done in the process.

A few weeks ago, I sowed quite a few seeds in readiness for planting out at the allotment.  Progress with regard to germination, however, was a bit slow and definitely a bit hit and miss in places, probably due to some of the seeds being a bit old, but I thought I'd try them anyway.

The early successes were the cucumbers, fennel and sweet peas which were some of the first to germinate.  As you can see these are progressing nicely (and a couple of chilli seeds in front are now starting to germinate too).

The African marigolds also germinated well.

The same couldn't be said, however, of the pots to the left of them which were nasturtiums, but these were definitely old seeds, so I'm not too surprised.

The next disaster areas were the sunflowers and courgettes.  Still not a sign, so I don't think these will now germinate.  It's a bit disappointing, but again, the seeds must have been too old.

My main concern was the tomato seedlings, which took the longest time to come through, but happily they are now coming up in abundance. They've still got a long way to go, but at least they're here now.  (The leafy plant is a small lemon balm I potted up).

Not to be deterred, on Sunday morning I proceeded to sow some runner bean, french bean and pea seeds into the cardboard toilet roll tubes I'd saved for the job.  It makes separating them out and keeping the roots in tact much easier.

I then popped to the garden centre, as I needed some bamboo canes to give to someone at the allotment who had lent me some last year, I needed new ones too myself, but they weren't very expensive.  Whilst there, I also bought some sweet pepper and more courgette seeds. Hopefully I'll have better luck with these.  As organic vegetables are so expensive, I'm determined to grow more of my own this year.

I do think that maybe a decluttering of the seed box is in order to give myself a better chance at success in this regard.