Seeds & Stuff

I start to grow seeds in early January; this year started with tomatoes, onions, leeks, lettuce and peas. This is done by keeping the seeds-trays inside the house, in a store-room I have ready to go after Yuletide. We are now in the middle of February, and I have started to put some of the trays outside in a mini-greenhouse in the daytime - to start to harden them off. They are taken back inside the house overnight, just in case of frost. 

 

I use this size of seed-tray, and have had these for years now, even though they are not exactly strong - but they work. 

These two trays have tomatoes in them; they have been put outside in the mini-greenhouse to start to harden them off. 

Now is the time to chit potatoes; I use egg-boxes since this is something that I eat a lot. Save them up throughout the year for use in the early winter. These are First Early, Second Early and Maincrop - though the main crop do not really need to be chatted. 

This is a bed of garlic, planted last December; garlic thrive on a cold start and this is the best time of year to plant the bulbs. At the back of the bed is a fennel plant growing again this year.

The above tray of leeks was planted in early January; you can see here that I use plastic supermarket trays which I collect from various people to use for the seed-sowing. This has saved a great deal of money having to buy the cheap plastic trays which usually break quickly. These are mushroom and tomato trays mainly, and most supermarkets use them so there is an endless supply. (This is why I do not moan about the use of these since they can be 'home-recycled' to make good use of them.)

I do a friend's garden and he has a large Rosemary Bush which needed trimming last year; I planted up a host of trimmings - merely scraping the base of the stems - and around 90% of them rooted and are now growing well. Rosemary is one of the easiest to take and plant cuttings of - no point in buying them.

The raised beds in the garden have been dug over ready for planting, the small poly-tunnel cleaned out, and a small plastic-covered mini-greenhouse put in place ready for planting later. Good-to-Go!