Sunshine and seeds

I had a slight set-back with the PhD yesterday. Hopefully not major, but enough to send me into a spiral of stress! By the late afternoon I was a bit calmer and in desperate need of a break and a fix of some all-too-rare sunshine. I was also aware that it was a prime time to plant tomatoes and aubergines; and I just happened to have some seeds waiting earnestly on the kitchen table…

All the seeds that I have chosen this year are supposed to be fine to grow in pots and tubs, perfect for the courtyard. The next hurdle is not growing tons of everything, that is usually easier said than done for me. A couple of years ago I grew so many tomato and pepper plants that I turned our conservatory into a jungle – I wasn’t very popular that summer!

In an attempt to keep a check on how much I’m growing, I decided that rather than plant the seeds in seed trays I would plant them in plastic bottles. This idea came from MrBrownThumb, it is ingenious! It’s cheap and it means that I can restrict my sowing!

I cut three 2-litre drinks bottles in half horizontally. Then I heated the tip of a fondu fork and used this to melt holes in the bottom for drainage. You could use tweezers or a long nail instead. I put the compost and seeds in the bottom half of the bottle, just like in a seed tray, but the seed were placed on a slightly greater depth of soil (about 8 cm). Gave the seeds some water and popped the top-half of the bottle back on. I cut a vertical slit in the top of the bottle so that I could squeeze it slightly and get it to sit just inside the bottom half. I thought this would be better that trying to balance it on top.

Next to the chitting-potatoes on my window sill I now have three little mini propogators! One containing Gartenperle tomatoes, one with Baby Rosanna aubergines and one housing King Richard leeks. I hope that they work! I’m not so sure about the leeks, looking at the calendar I perhaps should have left these a day or so before planting them. If they don’t work, I can always blame the moon!