Six on Saturday: Seeds, Salads, Plot and Plans

This week’s flown by. The seed order I placed two weeks ago finally arrived on Thursday. All 45 packets of them! The packing list just a glorified till roll receipt presented a challenge in patience as I tried to translate Portuguese to English and then cross-check against my friends’ orders, calculate who ordered what and the price. Don’t you just hate checking and rechecking an order until you’re cross-eyed with confusion only to discover a pack of seeds missing?

We also started a new project (see raised veg garden) to keep our spirits up while we are still in lockdown.

And the Prestbye cat deterrants are now winging their way back to Amazon. Even though only one is broken we had to return both. I am NOT happy.

1. Seeds Glorious Seeds – Sowing

A busy week planting seeds!

Tomatoes – Minibel – planted in seed pots in the cloche. Hopefully these will grow incontainers on our front terrace

Aubergines (Beringela) – Violeta Longa – planted in seed pots in the cloche. These will evenutally be one of the first residents in the new raised beds.

Curly Parsley (Salsa-Persil) Grune Perle – I’ve never managed to persuade English parsley seeds to germinate. We will see if I have any better luck with these. Eventually, these will be transferred to pots near the house. I’ve yet to decide if they like full sun or part shade.

Peppers (pimento) Corno di Toro Mix – A mix of red green and yellow peppers. Another possible resident for the new raised beds.

Beetroot (betteraba) – Hullahup. Fascinated by a TV celebrity chef using coloured beetroot in one of his salads, I was sold. A must grow. I planted a few of these directly in the ground and covered with an old fridge tray to prevent the birds and cats digging. If these grow, I will save space and plant another crop in early June and then another in early September to see us through the winter.

2. Raised Vegetable Bed

Much to my surprise Gnome suggested he built another two raised vegetable beds to replace the mismatch of containers and pots. I/We decided to utilise the area in the corner and at the back of the existing bed.

The location did present a slight problem. Due to the invasive roots from the adjoining Maleluca hedge, the plastic liner could not rest directly on the soil. We needed a base. We finally decided to use clay bricks, covered with a layer of thick plastic.

Gnome raided his wood stash

Built a frame

To be continued …

3. Tomato Experiment

Last summer our Portuguese friend used to source a lot of produce from a local farmer. The tomatoes were so sweet and more-ish, I decided to save some seeds and attempt to grow my own this year. I saved seeds on to kitchen paper and let them dry out. fingers crossed they will grow.

4. Lettuce

My plan this year is to maintain a steady crop of lettuce throughout the year. So far if I can nurture beyond the seedling stage it seems the one veg (dare I say) I can grow without too much trouble. Usually I buy seed plugs but this year I am determined to grow my own.

These are the variety I planted on February 2nd. I sowed both varieties but only one grew. It will be interesting to see which.

This week I transplanted the seedlings into indiviudal pots

5. Potatoes in Progress

These were the potaotoes Gnome planted at the end of January

They are now over the top of the pot. the biggest challenge is deciding how much water to give them. Although we’ve had a lot of rain they are tucked right in against the hedge.

6. Seeds in Progress

Spinach (Espinafre) Winter Giant. I am not sure this is aptly named. I have now planted two batches on on the 1st February and more on the 16th in good quality compost.

Garlic planted at the end of December

Carrots planted at the beginning of February

Leeks planted in as seedling plugs at the beginning of December. I also poked in some spare garlic cloves.

That’s it for this week. Now off to line the raised vegetable garden and plants some more seeds.

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