Greenhouse Update, early June 2020

Hello and welcome to another quick look inside the engine room of plot #59 – our 8’x10′ greenhouse.

Since the last update Jo and I have been as busy as I thought we’d be; sowing seeds, pricking out seedlings, and potting up young plants to grow on to planting-out size before taking them down to the plot.

Here’s what’s on the go at the moment:

Down at floor level, the large plastic tray is awaiting the tomatoes which will be growing away in mid-size pots before too long (see below). In the meantime it’s hosting a cucumber in the long-tom pot, and a couple of ginger plants that I started off earlier in the year. Next door are three Chilli plants – all ‘Aji Lemon’, which is about as hot as either of us can stand – in the Chilligrow planter.

Next up, a stack of shelving with (top to bottom) newly germinated squash plants, potted-up courgettes – the ones on the left will be going in at the alloment at the weekend by the looks of them – and then my parsnips-in-root-trainers experiment (hmmm…) and some rather pathetic leeks and onions, which I’m not sure will be worth planting out. Maybe after it rains.

A quick interlude to show off the carnivore collection, which is really getting into its stride. I really must remember to relocate a few of them once the tomatoes are in flower though; I’m pretty sure a dearth of pollinators due to the over-zealous work of the Sarracenia mob was one reason why I didn’t get as many tom fruits as I was hoping for last year.

Back to the crops, and here we have newly-sprouted beans (which, since I took this pic a couple of days ago, have grown at least another two or three inches) and a few ‘San Marzano’ tomato plants. Then we have potato onions, peas grown for pea-shoots and a tray of assorted flower seedlings. Underneath that we have potted-up Hungarian rice beans and Jo’s sweet peas, which have been pinched out and will hopefully be bushing up a bit before planting out in a week or maybe two.

Here we have a tray of lettuce and a tray of radish, with a seed tray of scurvy grass (one of my experimental edibles for this year) and a few of this year’s tomatoes; I think those are ‘Maghrebi’. Next shelf down we have some pots of chervil, potted-up red kale and a tray of leaf beet (a.k.a. perpetual spinach, which goes nicely in a salad or finely-shredded as an omlette filling alongside fried onion and mushroom). At the bottom is our newly potten-up sweetcorn; twelve plants of ‘Sweet Nugget’, which I think should be plenty for us this year. I’ll be growing them on for a couple of weeks – and moving them to a higher shelf once they get a bit taller – before they head down to the plot.

Finally we come to the bulk of the tomatoes – ‘Tigerella’ and ‘Ildi F1’, with a couple of English Thyme seedlings hitching a ride in the trays. Alongside those are a tray of sunflower seedlings – next on the potting-up list – and underneath those a tray of Calendula (marigold) seedlings – to be used as companion plants for the tomatoes – and a few potted up yellow Agastache plants and a couple off Rudbeckia seedlings. At the bottom is a tray of heritage beetroot seedlings which don’t seem to have done anything since they germinated in April, and a few potted-up cucamelons.

So that’s what our greenhouse looks like at the moment. Almost full, I reckon – I really need to start planting out some of the larger plants to make room for more potting-up, as well as a few more trays of sown seeds. No rest for the grower.

If you’re interested in more info about the crops we’re growing this year then you can view our sowing & growing records. And of course, please do feel free to hit us up with any questions, queries or suggestions, via the comments.