I planted chili seeds last week and today they had come up and ready to be moved from the seed tray to little pots. I picked the four best seedlings to plant into small cardboard pots which later on will be moved into bigger pots. Last year we grew peppers on the window sill for the first time and this time I fancied something with a bit more bite. Four plants will see the window sills full up, but I’ll keep the other seedlings for a little while longer as maybe we will have them on other window sills, maybe in the small plastic greenhouse….

The small plastic greenhouse, all a bit flimsy, in need of being weighed down and concerned it might not last a full 12 months. No worries though as it only cost £2.50 last year from Wilkos which would had been silly not to buy it. It has been sitting in its box for the last six months.

The plan this year is to start most things off in plug trays and put out as small plants. It worked well towards the end of last year allowing us to do last minute radish, turnip and swede with little fuss. The greenhouse means we won’t end up with a bedroom window sill full of pots for months on end. I have normally sown seeds near the end of March, beginning of April. I see April 1st as the date for potatoes and onion sets and from that everything else follows on. This year I have fleece and I’m going to use it, along with germinating small seeds indoors and starting things off undercover.

Today I sowed the following:

• broad beans (to join the overwintering ones already underway)
• leeks indoors to germinate (because I know they will be fine)
• leeks multi-sowed undercover (I’ve never multi-sowed before and am interested to see the results)
• three different types of lettuce indoors to germinate

I’ve doubled up on outside undercover sowing and put one lot in the small plastic greenhouse and the other lot on the top shelf of the “bit around the side of the house” which is undercover with a clear roof. I’m interested to see if they get enough light under there because if they do it will be a handy place to start plants off next year.

The two different methods for leeks, single row and mult-sow will give interesting results I hope. The traditional method of sowing and then splitting the plants up and dibbing them into the ground when they are ready, against the idea of sowing multiple in a single plug and putting them all out like that (no dibbing). We still have plenty of leeks in the ground from last year, time to make leek and potato soup I feel…

Chilies that I sowed last week had all germinated and so I picked the best four and put them in pots. These will remain indoors, graduating to larger pots as time goes by. The remaining seedlings I’ll pot up maybe next week and either give them away or put in the plastic greenhouse if it survives…

That’s it for now, but soon I will do some early radish and I’ll also start pondering about parsnips.

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