To pot or not to pot...

Well the tomatoes and the nasturtiums seem to be coming on like wildfire at the moment and the spinach has absolutely shot up since this morning.

The tomatoes and the nasturtiums have got to the stage now though when I'm wondering how long they can stay in the pots they are in. For space issues inside I'd quite like to be able to go straight from the pots they're in out to the windowboxes but is it still to cold and early for them to brave the outside? For tomatoes I have read everything from early May to late June but have also heard of some people putting their tomatoes outside from mid-April so I'm not sure what to do! Also, before fully transplanting them into outdoor windowboxes do we need to acclimatise them to outside a bit at a time or will they be ok if they go straight out? From a bit of nasturtium research it seems that they would probably be ok to go outside straight away (and they are getting a little unruly on the table!) but would it be ok plant them in a window box now that we then add more to later?

Outside on the kitchen windowsill the last of our three types of daffodil is looking like it will burst into flower any day. And these ones will have multiple flowers from one stem which I'm looking forward to seeing.

A sunny windowsill weekend

Well I've had a few days off the blog but over the weekend we decided to put the five herb pots out on the windowsill for a while whilst it was really sunny to see how they fared. They've been doing ok (and the basil seems to have perked up since I stopped watering it so much - thanks for the tips!) but what seems to have happened is that they've hit a bit of a stage where they don't seem to be getting any bigger particularly quickly so I thought some time out in the sun might do them some good. Unfortunately for the coriander by the time it was brought back in again it seemed to have flopped over completely. I'm not quite sure what to do about it to get the stalks stronger so that they can support the weight of the leaves. In the other pots I keep thinking that some day the skinny little chives are going to be getting a bit thicker but they don't seem to be showing any signs of that yet. The parsley seems to be doing ok, I was worried before that only one of our seeds had germinated but then I was informed that parsley always takes ages to germinate and since then we've had two more seedlings so things are on the up! And last but not least the mint still seems to be lingering behind as lots of very small little plants. So a bit of a hotch-potch with the lot of them but any advice on what these herbs should be looking like nearly two months after sowing would be much appreciated!

In other exciting news the spinach seeds that I sowed a week ago are starting to pop their heads up which is fantastic.

More flowers

This morning I woke up to a beautiful Jack Snipe narcissus that has opened its petals overnight. A lovely way to start a Friday.

Pie!

It has been pointed out to me that the blog has become a bit more of the windowsill and a bit less of the cook.

So here's a post to even things out a bit! Last night I made a chicken and mushroom pie for the first time ever and very tasty it was too. I just got the recipe from the BBC website although altered a few things using large flat mushrooms rather than button ones and using the remaining half of a roast chicken rather than three chicken breasts but it all turned out very nicely. Alongside it we had new potatoes and I dressed them following a "tip" on the side of the packet to shake them up with lemon zest, thyme leaves, olive oil, salt and pepper. Delicious!

So pie, peas and potatoes for dinner and two very satisfied customers!

Taking stock...

Well I've finally got around to transferring the chillis and the sweet pepper out from the seed tray and into some pots. Hopefully now they've got a bit more space they'll continue to thrive and start getting a bit larger. One of the chillis is looking a little sickly and it's leaves are curled up but it was previously sharing a seed plug with another plant so maybe now it's got a whole pot to itself it will perk up a bit. So in the windowsill garden stock take the grand total of the fruits of our labour in terms of the seed tray that we planted back on 6th March is:
8 tumbling tomato plants (Lycopersicon lycopersicum);
8 serrano chillis;
1 sweet pepper (Capsicum annum);
5 pots of Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare);
5 dwarf sunflowers (Helianthus annus);
10 nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus).

In addition to that we've got the other herb pots from the seed mats (basil, coriander, chives, curly parsley and mint) and the seed tray of salad leaves. As well as potting out the remaining plants I've also just added some spinach seeds (Lazio F1) to the seed tray with the rocket so looking forward to some tasty leaves...

As only one of the five sweet pepper seeds that we planted germinated I'm quite tempted to have another go at planting some more. Is it advisable to chuck away the seed tray that has just been vacated by all of the other plants or if I give it a good wash would I be ok to repot it with some more sweet pepper seeds?

Windowsill on the wild side

A couple of year's ago as a stocking filler at Christmas I got a matchstick garden of wildflower seeds. It's been sitting on my shelf ever since waiting until I had some soil and a watering can and at long last its day has come. I've just planted the matchsticks in amongst the daffodils in a bid to keep the flower windowbox in bloom long after the daffodils have gone. It's a lovely sunny day on the windowsill and I've given them plenty of water so they're off to the best start in amongst the daffodils. Encouraged by the success from the Wahaca chilli matchbox I'm hoping for similar success with the wildflowers. If all goes well we should be getting cornflowers, shasta daisies, corn marigold and field poppies so we'll have a rainbow of colours. I love poppies so really hoping that those seeds germinate!


You might just be able to see in the windowbox that one of our Jack Snipe narcissi looks like it's going to flower any day now too...

Tomato plants and butternut squash scones...

Well we've been away from the flat for a few days over Easter again so the plants have been having to fend for themselves. I was a little worried that when we came back they would have suffered a little from a lack of tlc but they seem to have survived remarkably well and the tomato plants have come on leaps and bounds. Their tomato plant shaped leaves have got so much bigger in just a few days.


We were back in the flat briefly yesterday morning and I got busy in the kitchen for a couple of hours baking bread to go with scrambled eggs and streaky bacon for a quick breakfast and making some parmsean and paprika scones, made with grated butternut squash rather than butter, to take around to a family Easter lunch/dinner yesterday afternoon. Blueberry pancakes are on the menu for a late breakfast this morning and the batter is sitting on the side aerating at the moment...