I can't believe its been nearly a month...

since i last blogged! Time just seems to go nowhere at the moment. Well as for the blowaway, it is unrecognisable compared to the last pictures i uploaded.
We have two very small tomatoes on the Sungold F1 monster (its almost as big as the thing from 'the little shop of horrors'!) The radish are nearly ready for the first harvest, basil is looking juicy. The two pots of beans and peas are growing skyward....its almost too many things to mention....
When the sun next graces us with its presence on one of my days off, i will take more pictures.

Note to self...blog more often!

10 day catch-up!

Don't get me wrong - i have been in the blowaway everyday (mainly on slug watch and watering duties), but simply haven't had time to do all i needed to do, so with some excitement i have finally managed all those little jobs, and everything seems to be thriving!
Today we have :

• Repotted all the Tomato seedlings (at least 8 or more!)
• Repotted lots of Coriander seedlings
• Repotted the Sunflower seedlings (hooray they germinated!)
• Planted Sparkler 3 Radish from seed
• Planted French Breakfast 3 Radish from seed
• Rescued two Pumpkin seeds (with shoots) that we thought were no good!
• Tied the ever growing Tomato plant to its cane, and changed its position in the blowaway
• Had a general tidy up!

The weather here today is extremely windy! Not so good when you have the door unzipped on the blowaway.The sun is trying to stay out, but the cloud is moving so fast that it is struggling to keep up, so pictures may have to wait until later when the light will hopefully be better.
The French Beans continue to grow at the speed of light, we are currently racking our brians about what we have we can replant them in, as are the spring onions that desperately need thinning out.

Its Bean amazing!

Although we have only had our 'greenhouse' for a few weeks, i think the biggest suprise so far has been our beans, peas and spring onions. All of which we purchased from a local pound shop, and to be perfectly honest we weren't particularly optimistic when we first planted the seeds...it all seemed too good to be true, a good, strong, deep pot. A pack of seeds and a clear (propegator style) lid, and compost all for 100 of the queens finest pennies!
So we planted the seeds on the last bank holiday, and today the pictures speak from themselves,

 the French beans, i think will be readt for re-potting soon, i think there must at least 3 or 4 plants in there at the moment.

The Sugar Snap peas are not far behind either, there are 3 plants that are leading the way, but if we look closely, there are 2 or 3 more on the way.

The Spring Onions are the White Lisbon variety, and although they have sprouted really really well, i am a little perplexed at where we go from from here! The seedlings look like teeny weeny spring onions, but there are lots and lots of them, so obviously they will need planting out soon, but further research is needed because they look so fragile, and we'd hate to lose them, after they have done so well.

Three tomatoes are walking down the street -- a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind. Poppa tomato gets angry, goes over to the baby tomato, and squishes him... and says, 'Ketchup.' - Pulp Fiction

Well alongside our ever-growing tomato plant, i suppose these seedings seem a tiny, but if anything i am more proud of them, because we have grown them from scratch, the tomato kit we purchased in week one, had three varieties, Gardeners Delight, Marmande and Moneymaker. We have sucessfully managed to germinate at least two of each in the tray and pellets provided, but the remainder of the seeds i planted up in compost and a tray. So we actually have more than 10 tomato plants than we bargained for that are all doing really well! Keep your fingers crossed.

Growth Spurt

It just amazes me what a difference two weeks can make, the tomato seedling we purchased in week one is unrecognisable, it has more than tripled in size, both in height and width..and more importantly has its first few flowers!

This variety is F1 Sungold, and looking at the way this plant is growing, it will be near the roof of the greenhouse in no time, looking at the mark i made on the cane, it has grown over 10cm in height in 14 days!

The chilli pepper, and sweet pepper seedlings that where also planted into a growbag in week one are also thriving, only two leaves out of the three plants have been nibbled (Mr Slug..we know its you!) So lets just hope the eggshell i have put around the base of the plants does its job, i guess as with most things at the moment we can only try! Paul has also read that slugs and snails also have an aversion to copper wire? So if the eggshell collars don't do the trick, i think copper wire may be the second string to our bow, i really don't want to have to resort to using slug pellets.

and two weeks later...

Doesn't time fly! The last fortnight has just flown past me, in a blink of an eye. Meanwhile though, the contents of our blowaway greenhouse has really sprouted into action. We have had a few casualties however, the sunflowers that were doing so well....well they disappeared. The culprit, we think, was a snail.
So with a little bit of help from 'The Grapevine' we are currenty trialling the use of eggshell as a deterent...

The rocket seeds we planted continue to be our biggest success so far...however it seems Mr Slug has taken a fancy to this pot....

Luckily, the other pots were all ok, and we still have more to pot up in the next few days.

During 'Slug and Snail Patrol' today i must have found at least 9 or 10 hiding underneath the growbags, so hopefully everything should be ok, at least for tonight anyway! Fingers crossed!

. “Let's start at the beginning, a very good place to start”....

This time last week we decided to give 'grow your own' a go, and as with most things we decide to do, it was a spur of the moment kind of decision so we didnt want to spend a fortune - especially when we were not quite sure how sucessful we would be! We searched all our options on the net, and decided on what we thought seemed like a thrifty option - a plastic sheeting style greenhouse from Argos. It was reduced from £55 down to £35 so suited our budget nicely. We also bought several packets of seeds, pots and some seedlings from B&Q. Amongst our purchases we also bought three 'grow your own' starter kits. One a tomato selection, one with herbs and another which was chilli peppers.
The erection of our greenhouse didn't take long at all, in fact it took us less than hour from start to finish - despite online reviews saying that the instructions were impossible!

So there it is, our humble greenhouse! Although it has only been a week, we have pretty much decided that when the finances are right we will be opting for a 'real' greenhouse. The seedlings that we planted up into our 'anchor' growbags have really seemed to come along, they seem much stonger and the tomato plant has definatley nearly doubled in size. The 'grow your own' kits have also really suprised us, the herbs seem to be the front runners at the moment, the rocket is almost ready to be potted up into larger pots, and im sure the sweet basil won't be too far behind!

The starter kits left us with loads of seeds leftover so we have palnted those up in trays, we were not to sure this was going to work, but sure enough, yet again the rocket has sprouted already. Is this usually the case with rocket? Is it really that easy? or have we just been lucky? The other kits, seem a little slower off the mark, but i have to keep reminding myself it has only been a week!

 We also bought pumpkin and sunflower seeds to plant, i love sunflowers, and our three lovebirds will love the seeds when they are done, we have planted the giant variety in growbags, but also planted another few varieties in pots.  The giant ones have started to sprout already...again, i just can't beleive how quickly this is all happening!

We have ten pumpkins potted up so far, there is no sign of them sprouting as yet, but as long as they are here and ready for Halloween it doesnt really matter, i was just intrigued how easy it would be to grow something that big!

So, all in all i think we have had quite a productive week, i can truly say that we have both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves too, which of course is what its all about - aswell as giving us a taster of what a 'real' greenhouse would be like.

The next topic to research will be space saving ideas...as we have already discovered, space is at a premium so any way in which we can save a space or two will be needed sooner rather than later!