Early seed sowings for 08

Sowing for this season started on the 9th January when we sowed 2 types of onion and our first sowing of leeks. The varieties we are growing this year are red brunswick and alisa craig. For leeks, we are going for a tried and tested variety, musselburgh. We sowed the seeds in a seed tray and pricked them out into individual toilet rolls 5 weeks later. The leeks are being kept together in one large pot, as these can be separated later for planting on the plot. The onions and leeks were transferred to the coldframe and have been growing slowly since! In addition, we have sown sweet peas, both saved seed (unknown variety) and sweet king blue on the 15th Feb, broad beans on 2nd March (imperial green longpod) and peas 13th March (kelvedon wonder).



In the conservatory we have planted chillies, aubergines and tomato. The aubergines germinated well without heat, but the chillies and tomato varieties faired better in a heated propagator.

We are growing a number of chilli varieties, ranging from the interestingly named 'ring of fire' to apache, which were very successful for us last year.



Pictured below are recently germinated tomato seedlings, which will be pricked out into individual pots over the next couple of days. All the varieties of tomato took 8 or 9 days to germinate in the heated propagator.

The aubergine seeds germinated within 1 week sowing and are growing well. We will be growing these in a greenhouse to be situated on plot four.