homegrowing's Blog

The last few days I’ve chucked about 10 snails out of my greenhouse (per day), and I’ve had enough. I’ve no idea where they’re all coming from, all the sides are sealed up again, so I’ve gone and bought some pellets, and put them EVERYWHERE. Maybe I’ll find their origin one day.

Other  than that, last night I went out into the rain to put some cabbages, romanesco and purple broccoli into bigger pots and keep them in the greenhouse. Hopefully they’ll cheer up now.

I also put the aubergine in a bigger pot again, and put some clean wood chips as a top layer to look a little better.

Looking much bigger now isn’t it?

I also planted a load of runner beans outside, so fingers  crossed! The peas are looking good, too, and I’ll soon have to force them to grow up the “sticks”. The onions are coming up well, the salad lettuce is nearly done, and I’ve just got to plant out the minipops this month and that side of the garden will be finished (other than eventually removing the horrible looking chicken wire – the cats keep digging up my plants)!

the weather promises to be fine tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll be able to update you further!

Have a good weekend!

I’m pretty saddened at how little I’ve been able to do recently, with all the rain. Today, though, I braved it and planted my brussels sprouts outdoors under coke bottles to keep warm. My Aubergine and Butternut Squash are looking amazing! They’re growing really well on my windowsill.

Can you guess which one is which?

I’m a bit worried about the aubergine. It’s a black beauty variety, and all I’ve heard about it is everyone has problems getting it to fruit, regardless of their skill – so I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

the leeks have well popped up and so have the purple sprouting broccoli, gherkins and romanesco. Still waiting on a few others…

Monday is the first day it’s not supposed to be raining as much, so hopefully I’l finally manage to get more done soon!

I’ve decided recently I think I really want an actual allotment, but it’s the getting one I’m a little confused about. All I know is go to your council? Any help?

Enjoy your weekends!

Despite spending a few hours outside today, you can’t really see that I’ve done that much. ):

I planted my Runner Beans (armstrong) earlier, fingers crossed they start growing soon! My peas are looking a lot better since I last posted about them.

Speaking of which, my lettuce and oriental leaves have shot up, too;

And yep, those green speckles at the front are the Perilla Greens growing.

I was going to plant the sweet corn straight in the ground before remembering that I need to warm the ground first – oops. I’ll do that tomorrow!

Other than that, I’ve just been putting plants into bigger pots for them, mainly the peppers and aubergine. have a lovely pic of the left side of the greenhouse – that’s what it’s now like 24/7!!

And to think only a couple of weeks ago I had that looking so so nice… ); Still, it’s too cold for them to be left outside.

Which reminds me, my boyfriend and his dad fixed the green house windows for me at the weekend, and my goodness it’s warmer in there now – don’t worry, I checked for a birds nest first, thanks to you know who you are.

I don’t think I’ve updated in a while – Admittedly all I’ve really done is a lot of planting and tidying up.

Today though, 1 day early, some more of the lovely chicks hatched. We had a bit of a scare though, someone had knocked the plug which half sticks out anyway, and by the time anyone noticed it was a bit cold in the incubator. But they survived! I have a video of them slowly hatching, which was ADORABLE.

In about half hour – an hour, they went from this ;

To this…. (video)

Chicks bursting into the real world

The other chicks are doing fab! I’ll get an updated picture when they’re new shed is finished and their home.

As for my plants, they’re doing great, too.

3 tubs of peas are growing;

the oriental seeds are growing;

And the mixed salad is growing.

I also planted;

more rhubarb,

Cauliflower, all year round

lettuce little gem,

Romanesco,

Purple sprouting brocolli

cabbage primo

cabbage Durham early,

Courgette green bush,

Romanesco Fennel

gherkin

and soon, runner beans, more leeks and carrots and parsnips.

Oh and,

HAPPY EASTER.

And a BIG thanks to VegBlogs and VegetableSeeds.net for my voucher last week. I ordered some seeds and they arrived this morning.

I even managed to get out in my shorts today! It was lovely.

I spent most of my day outside today, wasting no time getting those new seeds into the ground/trays. I planted the mixed ‘cut and come again’ lettuce in a tray next to the rest of the salads in the greenhouse, then put the basil in with the tomatoes. A couple of marigolds have popped up there now, too, so hopefully it should get full of colour in no time.

Next the the tray (in the actual ground) is two varieties of onion I bought! Which are;

 Red Brunswick and

 Long Red Florence

I can’t wait to see how they turn out.

I also messed around with the position I’m going to put things over the next few months, which took about an hour!

Pretty disappointingly, I had to come in to post this and get ready for work, but I can’t wait to plant the rest of my seeds tomorrow!

Until then, and thanks again.

I do do as I promise, and here’s the chicks as of this morning…

I’m back off into the garden now, so I’ll see you soon!

I haven’t really been able to get a lot done recently. I’ve got a reallly bad cold, and for once in my life having the room baking hot has been pleasurable. But there are still some thing to update you on…

First and formost, there’s some adorable new life in the house!

They hatched on Thursday, and are looking pretty good now! I’ll post a more updated picture soon. They are gorgeous!

Next, the plants on the windowsill are growing fabulously. I have one chilli and rhubarb new seedlings, leek seedlings, both brussels sprouts seedlings, and the lettuces… well.. They grew better than I could ever have hoped!

I have a feeling every seed I put in has germinated. As you can see, the basil is growing well, too.

Last of all, I managed to drag myself out of bed for 3/4 hours yesterday to clean the green house. You can actually see in and out of it as though it was see-through. I haven’t finished it yet though, so I’ll get a picture when it’s sparkling.

Oh, and one more thing, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to all you mothers. (:

Because my plants are on the windowsill (much like most of you), my windowsill and thus wall and radiator kept being flooded because I was using a glass of water to water them. A bit silly of me – I know! So yesterday I went and fetched an old febreeze bottle I had kept long long ago. I’d learnt a few cleaning tricks concerning tea, so it had been filled with warm dilute tea, so I cleaned it out and such and filled it with water to plant the seeds, except when I went to use it, I realised it still stank of febreeze – not a bad thing for me, but I wasn’t sure what it’d be doing to my plants. So instead, I thoroughly (but hardly) cleaned the spray nozzle until it didn’t smell anymore when I sprayed water, and… Well, I’ll show you.

It works a dream!

As today is ssooo nice, and I’m not working on it for once, I took a lovely walk up to Frosts garden centre, just for a wander. I didn’t actually intend on buying anything, but how could I resist? I did keep myself somewhat in line though, I nearly bought 5/6 packets of flower seeds but said a very firm no to myself, and put them back. I might have done the same to a gardening book, too (hehe). So I ended up leaving with some marigolds, chives and tomato feeder.

The chives and marigolds are, of course, for pest control mainly. That and to add a little colour to the garden. Eventually I’ll come around to adding some flowers to the greenhouse to encourage bees to play with my peppers, aubergines, tomatoes etc. The marigolds will be going with the tomatoes, anyway.

Which reminds, me. While I was at work yesterday, I learnt some lovely new tricks. I was working in the kiosk between 8pm and 10pm, you see, which as you can probably imagine was incredibly slow, so my supervisors said I could go and get a magazine to read. So I got “gardeners world”. I would explain all the things I learnt, but this would be the longest blog ever, and as it is it’s already getting a bit long, so I’ll just recommend you go and look!

Now, last but not least, my plants are looking lovely – the ones that have grown so far, anyway.

One of the cabbages was big enough to be hardened, so it’s currently outside until I bring it back in, later.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Yep, I still haven’t been able to sort out the windows in the greenhouse. I’m going to bug my boyfriend to help me at the weekend, as I have work the next few days.

Until then, I’ve planted all my seeds on my bedroom windowsill.

Not the best picture I’ve ever taken but you get the gist. This month I planted;

- Rhubarb
- Pepper, Sweet spanish Mixed
- Pepper, Beauty bell
- Chilli Pepper, Long slim
- Brussels sprouts, cascade
- Brussels sprouts, Evesham special
- Spring onion, white libson
- Rosemary
- Basil
- Parsnip, White gem
- Lettuce, little gem
- Carrots, Early Nantes
- Cauliflower, All year round
and – Cabbage, Primo

Next month tonnes of plants go out, so I’m going to have to find more room somewhere…

One of my cabbages is looking almost big enough to start being hardened out, but I’ll wait until it’s fellow two catch up with it a bit more.

I have work later, but until then I’ll be out in the garden waiting for the power cut from the sun flares and super hope for an aurora. haha. (I perhaps get into space stuff a bit too much).

until next time!

My other gave me a big plastic “thing” she had from trying to grow sea creatures (one of those things you get children) but had put it in the spare room where no light gets, thus they never lived.

Anyway, she wondered if I could use it as a propagator, and I was more than willing. I thought I’d just put holes in the bottom so it would drain and such, and there’s plenty of depth (it’s pretty big).

But I’m not sure if it’ll stay warm enough because of the holes in the top…

I’d say the holes are about 3/4 cm in diameter each.

Soooo, I’m wondering what you all think? Will it stay warm enough? And what improvements would you make if it were you?