Holiday List Item 2 – Tick!

Tomatoes in the making.

Okay, for the more pedantic of you, I’ll tell you up front that I did this item arse about face, to coin a phrase. I actually moved the seedlings into the greenhouse the day I cleaned it and only potted them on today but there was a very good, logical reason for this  change which I will explain.

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A list for the holidays

Chilli and pepper seedlings with Pentland Javelin potatoes

I have a list of jobs that need doing over the two week Easter Break and I have decided I’m going to list them here, ‘tick’ them off as I complete them and see how many I can motivate myself to complete. Whilst I managed to get a significant amount of clearing up done last weekend, I spent a large percentage of this week nursing an aggravated sciatic nerve but I absolutely need to get jobs done this week or we will be too far behind to catch up.

We have seedlings

‘Hot Curry’ chilli pepper seedlings

It has been 3 weeks since the Mudlets sowed the tomato, chilli and sweet pepper seeds and, for the most part, we have had a good number of seeds successfully germinate, resulting in a respectable quantity of seedlings standing tall across two propagators. The propagators have been housed on two windowsills during the day but have spent the night-time on the kitchen worktops, near to the Rayburn, to keep warm and help with germination. It has been bitterly cold most nights which is why I have been moving the propagators away from the windowsills – it is quite surprising just how much cold air window glass can generate, rather like a greenhouse in reverse I guess.

A Chilli Greenhouse

I’m thinking this is enough chillies now

On a morning like today, with the sun shining and the outdoor temperature an impressive 14.5C, you could almost believe that Winter was finally losing her grip on our part of the world and that Spring had arrived. That’s ‘almost believe‘ though, not ‘know for sure‘ because one thing that gardening has taught me over the last few years is that Ma Nature doesn’t read books and most certainly does not follow all the rules, or that the advice in regards the seasons and specifically their start and end dates, written by experts can only ever be regarded as guidelines, best case scenarios and should not be followed verbatim. Warm as the day is today, there is still the possibility of snow and hard frosts have been known to hit as late as the back-end of May, as I learned to my cost back in 2010.

Potting on and more seeds to sow

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.

Seedlings, seeds and a bug.

Grown from seed last year, this giant pansy was well worth the effort.

The continued cold nights are really beginning to get to me now, as I really do think it’s high time that 4C and below no longer featured so heavily, thereby negating the need for me to spend time carefully trying to ensure that all my seedlings are snug and warm, tucked up under fleece. With some of the tomato seedlings now relying on the support of short plant sticks to remain upright, the job of ensuring that my meager supply of fleece reaches all corners of the seedling rows, without huge gags appearing between sections, has got that little bit more difficult. No, all things considered, I think it’s time for night time temperatures to start getting their act together and remaining above the 5C mark, at least for the majority of the time.

Gardening by torchlight!

Winter Squash and Pumkins with some chillies on the end.

The sun has been shining, the wind has gone and the temperature has been pleasantly warm. In short, the last two days has offered up perfect gardening weather and I was happy and willing to make the most of it.

Improvisation in the greenhouse

The areas under the fleece frames are full to bursting

You may remember that back in February I thought that I had a problem called ‘Damping Off‘ in my seed trays, as my seedlings did not appear to be doing so well. So to ensure that we had sufficient tomato, chilli, sweet pepper and cucumber plants for the year, I sowed a whole load more and hoped for the best. Well it would appear that ‘Sods Law’ has kicked in because despite my fears to the contrary, the original batch of seedlings all pulled themselves together and suddenly decided to thrive which I am convinced wouldn’t have happened, had I not sown replacement seeds (that’s the ‘Sods Law’ bit) AND the replacement seeds have also germinated in huge numbers and thrived.

A bit of a gamble

The framework in place for my fleece covers.

With my lovely clean large greenhouse taunting me with oodles of space, I turned my attention to my slightly over crowded propagators full of tomatoes, chillies and sweet peppers, not to mention cucumbers and more flowers, that had taken over the house and realised that I needed to do something about potting on some of the seedlings. Armed with 4 bags of freshly bought all purpose compost, I grabbed a tray of mixed tomato seedlings and made my way to the greenhouse.

Another big job ticked off the list.

From green to clean in four hours, these roof panels were thickly coated with algae

Not only was the sun shining on Sunday morning but there was actually some comforting warmth amidst its’ rays and with no wind to chase away that welcome warmth, the stage was set for one of the biggest preparation jobs of the growing season – greenhouse cleaning!