The Seedlings are Stronger

Its time I put in a note about the progress of my veggie patch or should I say a pots as to manage more efficiently and not having to bend so far down and weed I have got a row of pots which move about with the sun and if I notice some plant a bit droopy. I talk to them and move them a bit to see if they like or want a change. I know a lot of people scoff about plant sensitivity and laugh at people who talk to their plants. Well I am not ashamed to say I talk to them and tell them off if they droop a bit as they do when I am unwell. In fact I think the health of the home is very much seen in how healthy the plants are in the home. I used to have so many pots in UK. I plan to have a similar potted plant gathering here too but the difference is I have this time started with vegetables and herbs. The ornamental plants like the succulents, cacti and flowers will come later.

Now it has taken a long few weeks for the chilli seeds to sprout but I can finally say that of the 10 or so seeds I stuck into the pot I can now see 8 seedlings. It was such a joy to count out each new seedling over the last week. So now to see how the 2 small leave become strong seedling and when I will have to re-pot them. When there were only 4 seedlings I thought maybe I could just let them grow in this one itself but now I will have to see the progress and decide what to do – remove the weak ones or just re-pot them separately and let them grow at their own pace.

Next come the coriander and basil seedlings. Coriander seeds were the first ones to sprout of all the seeds sown. Oh I am confused with the spellings as the spell check in this new laptop is Aussie English! And so coriander is spelt with only 1 r. Both these pots had about 10 or so seeds each. The coriander has come up with 8 seedlings and the second leaves have also grown. The basil has been very slow to grow. After all these weeks, (same time as the coriander and chillies) had four seedlings only till this morning when at the watering time I saw another small 2 leaves peeking out from the soil. The older 4 seem to have got another 2 leaves showing. Now the seedlings are just barely out of the soil unlike the coriander which is the tallest and next the chillies where the leaves are standing right out of the soil. When they grow a little bigger I shall take some pictures and avoid all this describing but then I am trying to learn the craft of writing good prose.

The broccoli seeds were so fast when it came to sprouting. However they have been sown in small seedling trays and the seedlings looked very delicate for a couple of weeks. Now I think the leaves stand more upright and seem to not fall flat with every gust of stiff breeze. The information on growing broccoli suggests that the seedlings r very delicate and the roots have to be handled very carefully when re potting. So I decided to let them grow a little before I separated them out and re potted. I plan to get a long planter for this. Maybe this is a job for this weekend.

The tomatoes – I have Tiny Tom, Black Russian, Grosse Lisse and Roma – have all settled well after the re-potting. I have watered them daily and they have doubled in size very quickly. In fact the tiny Tom already has some very pretty small yellow flowers. The Black Russian seems to have got a few very small buds and should flower soon. It is so exciting to think we shall tomatoes soon…. well am sure the weeks will fly by till I can get fresh home grown tomatoes.

Last weekend I had bought some methi (the green leafy veg of fenugreek plant). After sorting out the leaves for cooking I noticed that the stalks all had roots still intact. So I picked a few nice healthy looking roots and stem and put them in the water. On Sunday I planted the stalks with their roots in a nice big pot and even in a week I think they will grow as I can see a couple of stalks have new small leaves budding out. So even if half of them take up it will be good.

Then I had another pot sitting empty and so decided I should plant some onions. One onion had already begun sprouting in the basket and so added 2 more and put them in the soil. Now the one that was already sprouting seems to have stopped wilting and looks green so I have to keep faith and patience to see the others sprouting.

Finally the potatoes… oh it does my heart good to see the leaves shooting up from the potatoes. I am obeying the information about growing potatoes and keep topping the soil up – called hilling – so that there is more room for new potatoes to grow. I also stuck an additional potato which was already sprouting in the basket. I hope to keep that corner at lower soil level till the leaves come out of the soil. Wonder if it will work, but I do not mind having some small new potatoes from that one. All the plants get some liquid feed every other day and I am really hoping for the plants doing well.

On Tuesday there were real strong winds with gusts up to 100 km per hour. Now I had noticed that it was getting windy I did not immediately go to check on the plants. However on going out to get petrol we saw that the back fence had blown over and the wood frame snapped. The tomato pots had fallen over and branches bent. The coriander seedlings were all flat on their backs. The lavender pot was looking a bit windswept. So all the plants had to be moved quickly behind the big dust bins and against the wire net that encloses the space under the house. The taller tomato plants needed support and so used the broken twigs from the tree in front to lean the tomato stems against them. I had to remove a couple of bent branches and scold them for letting a bit of wind get to them. Three days on from it and they have all rallied back and look strong again.

So the seedlings grow stronger and I wait for the harvest eagerly as this is my first attempt at growing vegetables. A good result will be the motivation I need to growing other vegetables – well I have a lot in my mind that I would like to grow such as runner beans, maybe peas, garlic, ginger, courgette and so on.