Sunday

Bought a few packets of seeds during the week. Did a bit of sowing today, pot washing, general tidying up in the shed and set up my water buts as I need to fill my IBC tanks for summer watering.

Very cold today so did a few jobs in the shed. The Lobellia seeds are coming up nicely.





Did some seed sowing. This year I have decided to sow into single cells to save the hassle of pricking out. Sowed 2 types of marigolds which hopefully will go well with the lobellia in my tubs.

As the seeds are coming up decided to get my heated frame ready for the lobellia in the next week or 2. Everything is working so it was a pretty straight forward job. All going well should have more than 200 seedlings in there soon. Self watering is great, cuts down on a lot of work.

Below is a list of the seeds I sowed in February this year. Although all my seeds were last years or the year before, germination was good. Going to sow another batch over the week end and also do some more work on my daughters garden.

Flower seeds sown in February 2010
Rudbeckia Cherry Brandy
Rudbeckia Becky Mixed
Rudbeckia Hirta Toto
Petunia Salmon Velvet F1
Marigold Durango Tangerine F1
Gaillardia Goblin
Sweet Pea Early Fragrance Mixed

Veg seeds Sown in February 2010
Cabbage Red Jewel F1
Pea Twinkle

Signs of new life 2010

Popped into my daughters shed this eve to find the marigold durango seeds have begun to germinate on day 3. Hopefully this is a good omen for things to come rather than me counting my chickens before they have hatched. I normally cover my seed trays with a sheet of glass as I have found by experimentation that this can cause faster germination by up to 50%. The other thing that I am happy about is that I now know for sure that my flouresent tubes work, this is the only light source as I have blanked out the windows in the shed. So much for fancy expensive gismo's, these were a fraction of the cost and give a larger area of cover. Hope I haven't jinxed thing for myself now :-)

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.

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.

Seed sowing 2009

Started my seed sowing with some strawberries on January 1st. These have done very well and are currently in 3'' pots in the heated greenhouse. Any seeds that require 15 degrees or less to germinate are sown on the bench and others that require 18 degrees plus are sown in the propogator. Germination thus far has been very good this year and hopefully all my little seedlings will go on to be strong longlived beauties.



SOW DATE 12/2/09
FLOWER VARIETY
CHRYSANTHEMUM EARLY DWARF CHARMFASHION MIXED F1
CINERARIA SILVER DUST
DIANTHUS PLUMARIUS SONATA
GAILLARDIA T&M RESELECTED HYBRIDS
GAILLARDIA GOBLIN
LOBELIA TRAILING SAPHIRE
LOBELIA UPRIGHT CRYSTAL PALACE
MARIGOLD DURANGO TANGERINE F1
OSTEOSPERMUM TETRA SUNSHINE GIANTS
OSTEOSPERMUM PASSION MIXED
PANSY WITTROCKIANA PETITE MIXED F1
PETUNIA CONFETTI MIXED F2
PETUNIA SALMON VELVET FI
PETUNIA PURPLE VELVET F1
RUDBECKIA CHERRY BRANDY
RUDBECKIA BECKY MIXED
RUDBECKIA RUSTIC DWARF MIXED
RUDBECKIA HIRTA TOTO
TAGETTS STARFIRE
THUNBERGIA SUPERSTAR ORANGE
THUNBERGIA ALTA BLUSHING SUSIE
VERBENA COMPACT MIXED
VERONICA MIXED COLOURS
VIOLA ENDURO MIXED F1



SOW DATE 12/2/09
VEG VARIETY
BRUSSEL SPROUT MAXIMUS F1
CABBAGE TARVOY F1
CABBAGE RED JEWEL F1

Will be sowing more varieties of flowers and veg mid March, will let u know how the current batch are doing as well as other varieties sown.