Categories
Greenhouse Growing Plot #59

Doing the Seedling Shuffle

Almost the first thing we did when we moved into our new house last Summer (apart from put he kettle on) was to invest in the biggest greenhouse that we could sensibly fit into our new back garden. We hoped that the 8’x10′ we opted for would offer more than enough working and storage space to meet our needs. It really should have done, but thanks to these cold snaps that the weather keeps throwing at us, we’re rapoidly running out of room.

We’ve currently got about as much heavy duty plastic shelving crammed into the place as we can sensibly fit and pretty much every shelf is taken up with plants in various stages of development. They range from newly-sown seeds – I put in some peas at the weekend; sweetcorn, gherkins, squash and kale in the last couple of weeks, and Jo has been working hard on her flower selection – through to good-sized plants – the broad beans for instance, and the dahlia tubers – which are pretty much ready to go out onto the allotment. That is, they would be if it wasn’t too darn cold to risk trying to harden them off in the cold frame, and there wasn’t a very real danger of frost and snow showers damaging the tender young shoots if we did.

Here’s a small selection of what we’re currently juggling:

April 2016 broad beans
I reckon most of these Vicia faba (broad beans) are ready to be planted out.
April 2016 - Chilli plants
The Capsicum annuum / chinense (chillis) are coming along nicely – further updates in another blog post soon.
April 2016 - Swiss chard seedlings
Beta vulgaris Swiss chard ‘five colours’… 100% yellow in our case.
April 2016 cucurbit seedlings
Recently-sown and newly-germinating members of the Cucurbitae family (squash and gherkins).
April 2016 - Dahlias sprouting
The dahlia tubers we invested in seem to be doing rather nicely.
April 2016 sunflowers
Jo’s sunflowers are growing well – some will need to be potted on again soon.
April 2016 - sweetcorn shoots
This year’s Zea mays (sweetcorn) crop is just starting out.
April 2016 electric daisy seedlings
Electric daisies pricked out and getting ready to rock (and shock…)
April 2016 pricked out brassica seedlings
A selection of potted-on brassicas (cauliflower and Brussels sprout) coming along nicely.
April 2016 more brassica seedlings
The next batch of brassicas (kale and cauliflower) aren’t too far behind.
April 2016 - salad trays
Lovely, fresh mixed salad leaves and pea shoots.

The forecast for the weekend is a bit more promising. If there’s no frost on the longer-range radar then we’ll start moving a few things out into the newly re-stained cold frame to begin hardening off, and all being well we can take them down to Plot #59 in a couple of weeks’ time.

Fingers crossed!

(And please do feel free to sing the title of this post to the tune of the E-Street Band classic, chorus line, if you feel the urge…)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.