Potting on and more seeds to sow

March 21, 2016 by Elaine 3 Comments

I’m thinking 27 tomato plants is enough

I spent an enjoyable if lengthy amount of Saturday, potting on the large quantities of chillies and tomato seedlings that have spent the last few weeks developing their root systems and putting on growth, in the seed trays they were originally sown in. In total I had 72 tomato seedlings across 5 varieties, 11 sweet peppers and 56 chillies across 4 varieties. Of course 72 tomato plants is a little excessive for a family of four, even with two tomato loving Mudlets’ who are happy to snack away on the red fruits as if they were sweets and no amount of chutney making could utilise the huge quantities of fruit that we could find ourselves harvesting come the summer.

Oh and let’s not forget the not so small matter of the amount of space this number of plants would require!

And 45 can go to school

No, 72 plants was just a few too many and so I decided to keep 27 which included 6 each of Chocolate Cherry, the bush cherry, the normal cherry and the Heinz, plus 3 of the Modus plum tomatoes, 6 of which I had bought as plug plants from Wilkinsons. I must apologise for lack of variety names for the bush and normal cherry but one was a free seed packet and the other a cheap seed packet, neither of which had the variety name on but at least they mentioned the type of tomato plant. The remaining 45 have now taken up residence in the school poly tunnel and some will be planted into tubs dotted about the school but the vast majority will be offered for sale.

The 56 chilli plants and 11 sweet peppers though …..

I won’t be as generous with the chilli plants though, as I will need as many pods as possible to make more of the Chilli Jam/Pouring sauce which has been so well received in Mudville over the last couple of years and the sweet peppers are all destined for the Mudville greenhouses, as well.

All 4 of the melon seeds (left over from last year) I had sown were also ready for potting on and I am pleased with how well these plants look, although they don’t look anywhere near as robust at this stage, as say cucumber or winter squash plants. I received these seeds for Mothers Day last year and so by the time I sowed them, it was already well into March and I knew I was pushing it to achieve anything close to a viable fruit. This year, however, I sowed the seeds at the start of February and I hope this will give the plants a fighting chance.

….. are all mine!

I had intended to sow some more seeds once I’d finished repotting the seedlings but I was feeling a little tired and as I was going to a friends 40th birthday party that evening (leaving Mud and the Mudlets watching England beat France in the rugby), I decided to call it a day and relax a bit with some knitting. However, as both girls have asked for a propagator of seeds each, I am going to supervise them planting the next load of seeds in the next day or so. Having made the decision not to grow as much this year, I’m quite happy to adopt a more relaxed attitude to the seed sowing and I am more than happy to let the girls take charge of the pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, courgettes and mange-tout, although Little Mudlet also wants some flower seeds as well but I have a ‘sow direct’ flower mix which I’ll let her take charge off.