Wednesday 16 March 2011

Get up, get up, get out of your lazy bed!!!!

My own Chilli jalapeno from last year- which I saved seed of and its all coming up - yippee!
I'm going to have a few words with a few of my seeds (Matt Bianco did it better), the few I've got sown are lazy little monkeys - don't they realise I want to say hello to them - come on you lot get UP. I have an excellent view out there waiting for them to look at, why oh why WONT THEY GET UP?????? Today is a few of hopefully many (boring for you), informative for me, updates of my windowsills at the moment. I can't blab on about garden, nowt up out there right now, except wind and wet stuff, yuk all the plants are rightly asleep! Anyway, what I’ve got sown/started on 15th March 2011 in the frozen north only on a window sill (except most of the onions which are at work). I've no timescale except my own - my season really is an unknown up here - I can barely stand up out there most of the time - so as Janet aptly put it yesterday my house is currently a plant incubator. I think thats a nice way to think about it.

I've stuff growing for me, for ebay (plant sales to pay for compost etc) and to try and make a tiny extra bit of a living here where, lets be honest - I didn't come to for the gardening. Not in this climate. Anyhow - as the tunnel aint up yet (I blame my thesis and dyslexic tendancies entirely) I need to be plootering about on random windowsills to get a bit of early sowing done. I've started eating from home - only a few things but its a start and I want to catalogue that bit too. Even just a bit of windowsill action in the manner of a leaf salad is so lovely right now. Well done windowsill, well done mixed leaves.
Lettuce seed - one, two, three, one hundred and ninety nine, two hundred! Counting to order......
I'm also beginning my mission to cover the world in flowers (at the moment its the edible kind) I've been putting together lots of seed orders. Mainly for veggies and herbs/salads - I am counting even the tiniest of carrot seeds to order - why buy 2000 of anything when actually you only want 50 or 100.  I've been quite surprised at how that is going, it would seem lots of folk like me don't want huge quantities of seeds - its a win win. I get more variety in my growing - folk get low cost seeds - kind of 'bespoke veggie gardening' but wihtout the faff for other folk! I've just to remember not to sneeze whilst counting seeds, not a good idea!

I have to say though, whilst the seeds are winging their way off to various glamourous UK locations, my seedlings to be are being a bit tricky - a few are up and saying hello - waving their little cotyledons - the rest are being a bit sleepy - get on with it you lot!!!!! Coming to me, hopefully up soon and awake, on a nearby windowsill, with an excellent view - are the following little seedling blighters:

For me
Tomato Latah (4 up and waving hello)
Cerinthe major ‘purpurescens’ (9/18 – peeking sleepily)
Chilli (K) pheobus (3 - sleeping)

For me and ebay
Tomato Lilliput (20 germinated on kitchen roll, just woken up having a stretch need put into a sleeping bag (jiffy 7))
Tomato Red alert (15 sown – sleeping, one up and died very sad)
Tomato Lemon drop (6 who seem to be on holiday!)
Chilli haberno (15 - sleeping)
Chilli Black Hungarian (7 - sleeping)
Chilli Bolivian Rainbow (15 - sleeping) 100 more to do
Chilli jalapeƱo (15 – sleeping but stretching) 100 more to do
Chilli variegata (15 – sleeping but stretching) 100 more to do
Chilli cayenne (15 – sleeping) 100 more to do
Coleuis mixed (15 - all sulking) get a wriggle on!
Cucumber bush spacemaster (12 - peeking and germinating upside down, clearly not the sharpest cucumber in the sandwich)
Squash gagat (3 – sulking)
Sweetcorn Incredible F1 (10) (sleeping - needs to wake up)
Banana shallots (sown in tray, having a stretch)
Potato onions (sown in tray – sulking)
Normal onions (stuttgarter) (sown in tray – peeking)
I send off my plants in their own little sleeping bags (JIffy 7) which folk can pot up and not disturb the plants. Cool huh?
And, very easy to post - all happy - a good solution to world flower domination - one day the world really will be covered in more flowers because of me making folks ears bleed about growing stuff (in a good way) and they won't really have bleeing ears - just bonnie flowers and veggies!
Cuttings for ebay
Tolmeia menziesii– Piggy back plant/youth on age/mother of thousands (40 rooted and going crazy)
Spider plants variegated (50 rooted, half crazed)
Spider plants green (50 rooted, bit sulky but will get there)
Tradescantia fluminensis - Wandering sailor (15 x 2 in a cell – rooted going crazy) (30 started today, probably be crazy by tomorrow)
Wild alpine strawberry plants white fruit like bubble gum (bare rooted)
Geranium red annual (50 rooted)


To do – don’t even go there yet!!

Thats only the onions I need to germinate this
 year, lets not look at the seed box.....!
On a postive note, I've started eating from home (not out of the freezer but fresh)

On March 16th - I'm eating
Rhubarb (one stem but a start..........)
Leaf salad from windowsill (4th cut already)
Herb basil from windowsill (lidl bargain 2 for 1.50) two tubs of harvested leaves in freezer
Onion - spring onion cut base off rooted in water and now about to put a pot on the windowsill a tub in the freezer
Herb sage - potted from work, some dried
Herb chives - on windowsill - outside stuff still sulking

Early days yet - I must be patient - I wonder however, if wandering about with a gong banging loudly or a megaphone might help them along?

No, OK, I'll wait then. I wish they'd hurry up, OK most things have been sown for less than a week or two, but to keep folk waiting, its very rude indeed! I've taken to yoddling at them..........look at the link above for Matt Bianco........!

Remind me of this when I'm beseiged with seedlings and no idea where to put anything................




11 comments:

  1. You positively put me to shame! I will have to get cracking in the green house otherwise I'll have nothing to look at or to eat!

    But seriously, you might want to curb your impatience a bit and just talk nicely to the little things, they are only babies you know!

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  2. Oh wow - you are industrious! So impressed with what you're doing on your windy isle. There are lot of species there that I'm not familiar with ... tomato lemon drop, banana shallots for starters.
    Must say though I love your first photo. Just gorgeous little jalopenos.

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  3. Loud noise will only frighten them. Singing will put them back to sleep, there is only one thing you can do ..... gentle persuasion. Have a quite little chat every ten minutes (all through the night as well, I'm afraid) and eventually they will all pop their little heads up!!!!!

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  4. I am with Fran on this - a quiet chat is what is needed!
    :)
    K

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  5. Hello there Anne, they will all get there - don't worry!

    Duchess the tomato is a heritage one

    http://www.heirloomseeds.com/tomatoes.htm

    and the shallots are a long shallot which is easy to slice - I love them. Its a bit of an experiment growing them as they are just from the supermarket (tried it before and it worked).

    Fran and Karen - I'm not being loud - mainly I'm singing to them - then I can leave the radio on over night and get a rest!!! They are being sung the song I've put into the link up there - I'm good at the dooooowapopppp bits!

    Do you remember the good life episode where they have the experiment

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cEi8smmG7k

    Barbara had more luck than Tom so I'm taking her approach - but I am impatient!!

    Thanks for dropping by!

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  6. wow fay you have been busy . I have too , my potting shed is fit to bursting . Pleased to see we are growing the same sweetcorn . 'Incredible' i sprouted before planting as had poor germination last year but with different varieties . Also planted a few weird and wonderful tom plants from jungleseeds a black one a white one and a green stripy one!

    Lots of flowers too inc saved sweetpeas and nasturtiums as well as lupins . i just hope its not too cold out there.....

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  7. Fay, you are simultaneously inspirational and hilarious! I love your descriptions of your seeds as sleeping or sleeping but stretching etc. I've had a few sulkers too, not to mention that some of my cleome are being nibbled at by something horrid in the greenhouse. I suspect slugs or snails, I need to hunt them down. Very impressed that you are already eating home grown - my second lot of coriander is almost ready to eat, but everything else is still sulking. Hope your noise-making and general complaining and pleading work wonders and your seeds wake up and stretch and grow strong and tall.

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  8. I might need to buy some plants off you, Claire has got me growing veg lol :-)

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  9. hmmmm... that should say.... Janine said... :-)

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  10. Janet I don't mean to be either funny or inspriational - I'm generally ridiculus by nature! I found a slug the other day - dangerous creatures - it got flung over the fence whilst wondering what on earth was going on!!! The singing has worked - they have asked me to stop - and poked their heads up - :)I liek to think of them as napping, waking and being stubborn - all with their own personalities!

    Janine - hello - anything you need give me a call! xx

    Goodluck with all the potting shaz!!Thank you for the sweetcorn tip!

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  11. They are beginning to wake and stretch!

    Woo hoo!

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