The ups, the downs and the insides out of growing your own in 2025!

droopsnoot

I added a bit of extra compost to some of my chillies and tomatoes - they're not ready for bigger pots yet, but were standing quite high above the soil. The new compost I bought this year looks much nicer than the stuff I had last year - that had a lot of sticks and stuff in it and the new (from the same place, cheapo B&M stuff) is much more as I'd expect it to be.

A few weeks ago I planted some Scotch Bonnet seeds from a supermarket chilli which didn't do anything, so I thought I'd chuck them out and plant some more in the new compost, only to find that two of them had actually started growing shoots, so I transplanted them to the new stuff and added a few more seeds. I was given a couple of "Chilli Bhut" plants by someone on a Facebook group, so I transferred those to larger pots, too.

I've got a couple of sunflowers in pots at the moment, and I planted a couple of seeds outside yesterday in case they'll do anything - they didn't last year. Potato plants are starting to appear, in the row I planted them and in some other parts. 

carinjo

Not sure why i decided to do all the hard work today, before work, instead of on the weekend when i was off! Scored some free wood from a skip next to allotment, so no digging next to greenhouse anymore, build a bed for strawberries. It wide enough for a couple of rows.
Ms C done some seating in shade and planted bulbs in old wheelbarrow.
At some point this week will do the big seeds like courgette, but need to make space in the boiler cupboard first.
Oh and we got our first two asparagus harvested!

Suffolk_lass

Well done @carinjo - that wood looks great set up as your strawberry bed. Secondhand boards like that are between £11 and £15 round here.

My squash seeds are all in the greenhouse, albeit in gravel trays under propagator plastic lids. I'm hoping to see more of them poking through imminently, along with the shoots of the first beans this weekend too. They have been in for over a week now. Just one pot each of two runner bean varieties and two each of borlotti, dwarf French and a further climbing French bean (Blauhilde - a purple one that my DH can see to pick). We eat them as though they were asparagus - they are lovely, and go green when cooked.

Tomato babies are all surviving with no cloche covers and I keep wondering where I am going to put 18 plants... I do make my own passata with them and have just one jar of this left. I may get a cost shock if I have to fill the gap with tinned tomatoes before the new season's bounty!

I need to move some of my vegetable seedlings really. Nothing in the ground has grown, but my cold frames have lots of little things like chard, kale, kalettes (never grown before) and winter spinach, along with fast crops like pac choi and breakfast radish. Carrots and beetroot are no-shows, so far and zero sweetcorn has germinated. I might write them off and try carrots in the long root trainer pots the corn is in. It was last year's seed. I should have bought fresh really. I still could, to try straight in the ground as the soil warms.

Oh and a second bag of surplus rhubarb is prepped and frozen now - and we are eating a fair bit. I shall have some to split for next year. As suspected, the asparagus bed is unproductive, despite nurturing and the most recent crowns seem to have withered and died. The originals are coming to the end of their productive ife so I think we will write it off after this year's meagre offerings. 

Oh, and while I was at the children's agricultural show yesterday (several thousand children under ten), My lovely husband cut the grass, having first moved the spreading snowdrops and primroses that were in it. It looks like a real garden!

greenbee

I still haven't moved on seedlings from the kitchen as I'm in analysis paralysis over what size pots to move them into. At this rate they'll be able to go straight into their final homes. And I have about 50 tomato plants getting leggy on the windowsill @Suffolk_lass as I ended up with 10 varieties and have about 5 of each. 

I haven't yet sown runner/french beans, mange tout, or squash. Or beetroot, carrots, kohl rabi, salad. I clearly need to get on with it. I also need to pick and use the cavalo nero which is going to seed. I noticed that some of the fennel I gave up on last year appears to have germinated, so may keep that bed for fennel.

Parsley, dill, chervil, basil, and coriander also need sowing at some point. It seems never-ending!

Suffolk_lass

I put them in the smallest individual pots I have @greenbee. About 8cm diameter and 8cm deep. They need less than a cm of compost all round their roots, each time you pot on. I pot them on twice or three more times to get really good roots. You can bury most of the leggy stalks at this point and they will grow roots out of the stems. Definitely a thing to do earlier, rather than later and then don't over water as you want them to go looking for water with their new growing roots

redofromstart

The most successful year I had with sweetcorn was when I planted them direct in the ground but covered each one with a jar jar so it acted as a mini greenhouse. I may just have been lucky with the weather as I haven't tried it that way since.

droopsnoot

Suffolk_lass said:

Tomato babies are all surviving with no cloche covers and I keep wondering where I am going to put 18 plants...

That's always an issue for me - plant a few extra seeds on the basis that they surely won't all come up, only to have them do exactly that and have nowhere to stick them once they're grown. Added to that, my tomatoes always end up very "leggy" so drape all around the greenhouse. 

greenbee

Suffolk_lass said:

I put them in the smallest individual pots I have @greenbee. About 8cm diameter and 8cm deep. They need less than a cm of compost all round their roots, each time you pot on. I pot them on twice or three more times to get really good roots. You can bury most of the leggy stalks at this point and they will grow roots out of the stems. Definitely a thing to do earlier, rather than later and then don't over water as you want them to go looking for water with their new growing roots

They're all in 9cm pots already (shared), so long roots and long stems. So definitely time to pot on, and the toms probably into something pretty big given how long and skinny they are.

I've been out and half-heartedly scratched up some couch grass in the orchard and scattered some wildflower seeds. They'll either make it or they won't!

greenbee

One of each kind of tomato is in it's giant bucket. They were all VERY leggy and flopping in their little pots, so I'm trying not to handle them too much. However, I clearly need to put the spares into slightly larger pots.

I'm also hoping that the move from kitchen windowsill to greenhouse won't be too traumatic for them (maybe I should bring the spares in tonight) as although daytime temps are probably warmer in the greenhouse than the north-facing kitchen, night-time temps will be a lot cooler. 

carinjo

A good week on allotment and at home. Sowed some herbs, radishes and salad on allotment. The potatoes and gladioli are coming through and the shallots well established.
The transplanting of lettuce seedlings went very wrong, all burnt to a crisp in the heat we having, should've left it till next week.
At home all the seedlings doing well, 50% of squashes&courgettes germinated already. 
Was going to pot up the cabbages, but run out of time.
Away this weekend, so next week lots to do.
Happy Bank Holiday weekend everyone!