16/2/25 - Flowers of Progress

Good evening, and welcome to this weekends diary entry.  The place where you get to read my ramblings, face-palm at my occasional silliness and potential vow never to return to again.  I haven't had much time actually on the plot this weekend, but there is a bit to update the diary about, so let's crack on.

Sowing Flower Seeds

Kicking off at home and as Springtime maintains it's stubbornness and continues to drag it's heels, this weekend I've sown the next batch of flower seeds.  The intention for the flowers this year is to help attract all the good pollinators and bugs, perhaps persuade some of the pests to chomp down on those instead of the produce and to add some colour to the plot.  Not every seedling that reaches maturity will stay on the plot.  Some of them will come home too.  First up was a 1/2 tray of Lobelia.  These seeds are tiny, the size of specs of dust, so not really easy to split out.  The whole packet went on the 1/2 tray.

Next was a 1/2 tray of Dahlia seeds.  We did grow some at home last year, but I can't really remember much about them.  Hopefully this year I will pay a bit more attention and get some scattered around the plot.  Then to round off the sowing, I sowed 2 half trays of Marigolds.  One French variety and one African.  Last year, the African variety did particularly well, so this season I'm hoping for a repeat of that success.

All these seedlings say in the packet that they can be sown in February and started indoors on a windowsill.  I have given my the added luxury of a little bit of heat from a heated propagator base.  Hopefully, by the time they germinate and grow on enough to be pricked out, the weather will be starting to pick up and they can be moved up to the polytunnel.

Grow Tent Progress

Under the lights in the garage, there have been some minor changes and additions.  The Red Cherry tomatoes have really continue to grow very well indeed.  There are now multiple pairs of leaves on them and they seem to be really enjoying life with a warm bottom and under good lights.  The Black Beauty aubergines continue to make slower progress, but are all looking healthy nevertheless.

Added to the grow tent are some 1/4 trays of germinated seeds that I have taken of the Super 7.  The Pomodoro Roma tomatoes have germinated well, as have the Steak Sandwich tomato seeds.  Both have grown quickly over the last couple of days, and are showing signs of becoming a bit leggy. so I brought them under lights.  

The Rocoto Tree Chilli seeds have also germinated, so I have brough those under lights too to try and bring them on as best as possible.  Finally, the last 1/4 tray now moved under lights are the first sowing of All Year Round cauli.  Again, looking leggy and in need of some good light, I've moved those into the grow tent too.

Tunnel Progress

Earlier in the year, I started off with the Sweet Peas, which continue to slowly push their way out of their cells and start their growing journey.  Germination has been excellent so far, with only a couple cells across two trays yet to produce a seedling. 

Do We Have A Disaster?

When I first went to the plot this weekend, the first thing I noticed was the abundance of white fungus which had grown on most of my seed trays.  In particular, the seed trays in which I have used older peat based compost and which contain all my onion seedlings.  I assumed this was a humidity issue, but worried that this will kill off the seedlings, I tried to have a bit of a read up on what it could be.

The jury is still out though.  On some forums, people suggest that it is a sign of good potting mix, and that it shows good bacteria in the compost.  There have been a number of suggestions ranging from, 'leave it, it will be fine' to 'deal with it quickly because it will kill everything' and a few comments in between.  An interesting suggestion was to spray the affected cells with a diluted bleach solution to kill it off.  Given that all my first sowings of onions are in those trays, I don't really want to try something for fear of it doing more damage that good.  So, I think I am going to leave it for another week and see what it looks like next weekend.  If there are signs that the onion seedlings are struggling, then I will sow more and hope that they come good.  Also notice that there is still no germination for the Leeks.  Although I do recall from past years that they seem to take a long time.

Polytunnel Temperatures

This week the temperatures in the polytunnel have been as dull as the weather outside.  It's generally been a wet and/or grey week, with outdoor temperatures only rising or falling by around 6 degrees.  Not cold enough to produce a frost, but not exactly warm enough to do any good.  Given previous weeks, we've seen inside temperatures up into the 30's or higher, this week, they've got to 13.6 degrees.  No wonder things have slowed down a lot!  The minimum temperature was a chilly 1.1 degree.

Wrapping Up The Weekend

I've got a bit of a job list developing again, and this weekend would have been a good chance to knock a few of those jobs off the list, but we simply haven't had the time.  However, I have managed to take advantage of some early compost promotions in Wickes, as they were selling two Tomatorite grow bags for £10.  When the time comes to start using the quad-grows, I will be looking for compost to add to them.  I may end up using a blend of different composts, but given these growbags generally are intended for the purpose of greenhouse or polytunnel growing, I picked 6 up.

Next weekend, there will be even less action on the plot but it's not going to harm too much.  As long as the onion seedlings pull through I will be quite happy.  It will soon be March and things will start to ramp up a bit more, but I can't wait!