Things are coming along nicely in the heated greenhouse, moved out some more seedlings today to the cold greenhouse to make some more room. Still have about 180 or so seedlings to pot up over the next week or so. The fuchsia standards are coming on well and the crysants are beginning to flower.





Sowed some veg seeds today in the propagator at about 18 degrees, which really means nothing as the daytime temps soar to about 30 degrees in the greenhouse. Doesn't seem to cause any problems. Have reduced the heater to run at about 12 degrees overnight.


SOW DATE 13/4/09 IN HEATED GREENHOUSE

VEG VARIETY
TOMATO MONEYMAKER
TOMATO LEGEND
TOMATO RED ALERT
TOMATO 4796 TRIAL SEED

Haven't been getting as much done around the garden for the past 2 weekends as I should have. Between one thing and another, time has been limited. Have sown directly into a border the following seeds, not a great border as the wind is rampant there and I'm still waiting for some griselenia hedging to fill out which I planted there around 18 months ago. So we'll wait and see what happens there.

SOW DIRECT DATE 21/03/09
FLOWER VARIETY
CANDYTUFT FAIRY MIX
LAVATERA MONT BLANC
NEMOPHELA BABY BLUE EYES
NIGELLA LOVE IN A MIST
SUNFLOWER DWARF YELLOW SPRAY

The heated greenhouse is a bit of a challenge at the moment, morning and evening temperatures still low, but during the day temperatures inside are soaring to 35 degrees even with ventilation. Don't need to have bubble wrap for daytime but certainly do for night time. I suppose my biggest problem is that I leave for work around 7 in the morning when it's still quite cool and don't get home til around 6.30. Having said that the seedlings are doing very well.

In total I have about 300 seedlings pricked out now with a tray of antirrhinums and some delphiniums to prick out from the first lot of sowings.

Went on another seed sowing frenzy today and sowed the following

SOW DATE 22/3/09
FLOWER VARIETY
BLACK EYED SUSAN SALMON SHADES
GAZANIA KISS ROSE F1
GAZANIA KISS GOLD F1
GAZANIA KISS WHITE FI
GAZANIA KISS BRONZE F1
MARIGOLD DURANGO BOLERO F1
MARIGOLD PATULA DURANGO BEE F1
MARIGOLD DURANGO RED
MORNING GLORY CARNEVALE DI VENEZIA
MORNING GLORY HEAVENLY BLUE
PETUNIA SALMON VELVET FI
ZINNIA ELEGANS SWIZZLE SCARLET AND YELLOW
ZINNIA ELEGANS SWIZZLE CHERRY AND IVORY

All the seeds sown today were sown in trays as normal but for the 'Zinnia' as they don't like root disturbance, I sowed them in toilet roll cores cut in half, put them into the seed trays and covered the seed tray as usual with glass to speed up germination, hopefully this will work and I'll be able to plant them out without root disturbance.

Green house work

Spent the morning pricking out another 80 or so seedlings. Have about 150 now in total. Last year I used liquid copper fungicide which was watered in at the initial stage of watering the compost. This year I'm just misting the seedlings when there pricked out to pots. Seems to be working fine with only 5 out of 150 going down.

One side of my 6'x6' green house is now full and I still have another 150 or so seedlings to be pricked out over the coming week. God but I'd love to have a huge green house. I also watered the seed trays and newly potted up seedlings and also the seedlings that have been potted up for a month with a little feed to keep them going.

So, half the greenhouse is taken up with half of the first sowings, going to sow as much again around Paddy's day so it's going to be very tight in there in another couple of weeks.

Had a think about this no dig gardening and searched around on the net last night. Some good sites out there, but because of the fact that the area I was considering for this, is a sloping bank, more consideration and thought is required.

Got a nice surprise this morning in the post. T&M replaced a packet of seeds which I had a problem with. Great customer service there, I sent off an E, had a automated response within 10 minutes telling me someone would contact me as soon as possible and that's what happened. It's nice to see some company's out there offer a high level of customer service, no matter how small the problem. Also this is a copy of the only gardening mag I buy, Garden News, its a weekly one. More free seeds again this week, they're going to have to stop these free seeds, I'm running out of space, just can't help myself. Gotta stop sowing. :-).

Watered my seed trays this morning as the weather was dampish and have had enough of digging for the time being. I normally put a cork in one tray and stand the seed trays in there for about 15 minutes or so.

With the potted up seedlings I just stick a cork in each tray as its too fiddly transferring one pot at a time to another tray. I just add a small quantity of water to each tray and its usually soaked up that day. If there's still water in the tray that evening, I remove the cork and let the excess water drain away rather than letting the pots sit in water day after day.

A beautiful morning

A beautiful morning this morning and I decided to do a litte work in the heated greenhouse. Generally just organised things a bit better as I have alot of seedlings which will need to be pricked out over the next week or two.
Things are going to be pretty tight in there and also will have maybe another 20 tray to sow come the middle of March.

Pricked out some marigolds this morning, the ones on the left, fuschia next to them.

This is my one and only fuschia which is about 10years old. Based on advice given to me by one of my forum buddies, I started it into growth about 5 weeks ago by putting it into the heated greenhouse. This is how it looks today. Took some cuttings from the new growth about 2 weeks ago, put them in the propagator at 20 degrees and they were ready for potting on this morning.

Also did a bit of seed sowing, 2 trays and a couple of pots of sweet pea

SOW DATE 25/2/09
FLOWER VARIETY
ANTIRRHINUM TOM THUMB MIXED
DELPHINIUM DELIGHT MIXED
SWEET PEA EARLY FRAGRANCE MIXED .

Turned off the heater in the greenhouse this morning as the days seem to be fine now, but will turn it on each evening for a while yet.

Ok, the weather seems fine again after the shower we had at lunch time, so I'm off out now to cut more grass and dig over those 2 other raised beds.

My equiptment part 2

My little greenhouse in its tempory home

My pride and joy is my little 6x6 greenhouse, at the moment it is bubble wrapped as I'm sowing seeds. I have a heater, a propogator, a heating bench which I made myself, have the cables and thermostat but haven't used it as I moved house a couple of weeks ago and will be moving again in the near future, so next season hopefully it will be up and running. I also have flouresent lights which seem to be working well and all the other bits and bobs that one needs. I always try to find something that I can recycle or make myself rather than just going out and buying it. It's not about the money, for me it's about saying 'well done kid' you made something that is as good or better than a shop bought article or ' glad i didn't throw that out, knew it would come in handy some day :-) .