come on, grow!

Update on tomatoes: Managed to save at least one of each but still puny. In the meantime, I bought four plants from the garden centre (Sungold, Sweet Millions, Plum Titania Improved (how so?) , and a beefsteak tomato the label of which I lost cycling home).


Then there is the fruit. Pruned the greengage slightly but still quite a bit of fruit hanging on it. A few small pears on the horizon. Raspberries show signs of blossoms. It will only be a handful but for the first year that is not too bad. Also noticed something that looks like brambles growing wild yet respectfully on one side of the garden.





The other stuff is getting on but I'm getting a bit impatient. Peas are climbing, beans are growing, white beetroots are finding their way. Few more rows of radishes, endive, welsh onion and more beets. With the nice weather though they should go into a growth spurt soon enough. Half of gardening life is waiting - now I am waiting for the zucchini and cucumbers to come up. All in good time, it's only the end of May. In the meantime, I can enjoy some flowers.

germination

The tomato seedlings are in. I would say that the germination rate was somewhere below 50%, with Ildi and Tigerella particularly failing. So that's the lot I have to live with, which, considering that I don't have enough space for all of them anyway, is possibly a Good Thing. I was very pleased with the serrano pepper (free seeds from Mexican restaurant Wahaca, originally mistaken for matches). I also got a geranium cutting from my upstairs neighbour.


The seedlings outside the house are doing fine too. The radishes have all come up (I sowed them too thickly in hindsight) and the lettuces are peeping out too.


The white beetroot are just starting to emerge, can't wait to see how they get on (ok, so the picture looks like it's just dirt but honestly they are there).


The mange tout have all come up, no slug damage yet. Excellent. Still waiting for evidence of the Welsh onion though.


The raspberry show strong growth, both from the canes and shoots coming up from the roots. I cleaned out my fireplace and scattered the ash around. Not sure how much good it'll do but can't do any harm.


Need to remember to sow cucumber indoors this weekend. I should really check my plant list more often as I just noticed that I also wanted to start patty pan squash and the zucchini off in pots. It's still quite slow in the garden but with the English weather it's good to give tender things a headstart.

first sowing activity in the garden

Last weekend was the day of streetcar first use and the Big Compost Getting: 8x70 litre bags, which gave a good covering for the planting area. And then I didn't do anything for a week, except put the raspberries in.



The tomatoes seeds are a bit slow in coming up and I just re-sowed Ildi, Tigerella and San Marzano today. The other varieties were ok, just those are a bit hesitant. The aubergine didn't want to come out either. That's why I usually don't grow these things from seed, I find it a disappointing experience, almost crushing. The toilet roll method may not be the best way to go.

Today was nice, sunny and warm which encouraged hanging out in the garden for a while. So I finally planted the potatoes and the Mange Tout which probably could have been happily outside for a couple of weeks already. I also sowed some rows of Welsh onion, white beetroot, radish and endive. In this weather it is tempting to start early but I bet we have a few more cold days ahead.