Well, I’ve just about given up on the first batch of seeds I sowed.
Here are the germination rates I’ve had so far.
0/5 TOMATO Red Robin
0/2 SQUASH Patty Pan
1/6 Sweet Pepper – but there’s still time for the others yet.
3/4 CABBAGE Greyhound (2 went very leggy and one doesn’t seem to want to stand up. It looked so different from the first 2 to come up I thought it was a weed seed and so ignored it. Now it’s sprouted the first true leaf I’ve realised it’s a cabbage and potted up but it doesn’t look good.)
I bought a brick of coir from Hulme Community Garden Centre to use as my seed starting medium. I soaked it overnight and I’ve mixed it with a bit of sand (about 2:1 coir to sand). To take care of the nutrition side of things for the seedlings I’ve half filled the plug trays with compost, put a layer of coir/sand mix on top, watered it, sown the seeds and topped them with a light cover of coir/sand mix. Hopefully that will make for a good environment for the seeds to start and when the roots reach the compost it should mean I don’t have to prick them out too soon due to the nutrient-poor coir (something I was told I’d need to do in the garden centre). We’ll see.
I’ve sowed 12 Tigerella tomatoes, 6 globe artichokes and the last 5 Red Robin tomato seeds I’ve got. I sincerely hope this lot work or I’m going to have to buy a new pack. It seems like such a perfect variety for windowsill growing that I’d planned to give a few away as gifts in nice pots. I won’t be able to be quite so generous now but I’d like to get a few of them growing.
In other news – last night I put in a seed order to Garden Organic. The site just says “processed”, the same as it says next to the order I made last year, so I don’t know what stage it’s up to yet. I should get it either on Saturday or on Monday or Tuesday of next week.
Whenever it arrives, though, I’m going to have loads of seeds to get underway. I’m quite looking forwards to it!
Next on the to-do list is salvaging a fully glazed door and a load of windows that have been dumped in a skip over the road. Apparently someone turned up with a van and put the windows in the skip this morning – and it wasn’t the person who’s rented the skip – so all in all I think I’ll be doing them a pretty big favour in getting rid for them. What a nice guy!
On my Organic Allotment 