I’ve gotten a little over excited with my seed sowing this Spring. I just love growing things from seed – its just so exciting watching plants germinate (yes I know, very plant nerdy statement wasn’t it). I think that this year I may have overdone the seed sowing a little.
I have filled all four shelves of my mini greenhouse with seed trays and still I am thinking of sowing more. Now, I should point out that I have a few other bloggers to thank for my seed driven excitement. I’ve recently swapped seeds with Diana at Kebun Malay-Kadazan Girls, L at 500m2 in Sydney as well as Bek from Beks Backyard and naturally I wanted to try all their varieties as well as those I’d already bought for myself.
Apart from the tomatoes that I mentioned in an earlier post and which are doing really well,
this is what I have sown:
Herbs: Sorrel, Marjoram, Basil (a mix, Italian Sweet Leaf and Thai), Dill (although that was direct into the ground), Coriander, & Chives.
Lettuces & Salad Leaves: Salad Bowl Green, Salad Bowl Red, Mix, Freckles, Wild Rocket, Raddichio
Cucurbits: Golden Nugget Pumpkin, Black Zucchini, Lebanese Cucumber, Lemon Cucumber, Summer Dance Cucumber, Catalina Pickling Cucumber
Eggplants: Bonica, Lebanese Bunching, Listada di Gandia, Thai Green
Capsicums/Chillies: Poblano/Ancho, Capsicum Purple Beauty, Pepper Alma Paprika, Tobago Seasoning, Birds Eye chilli, Capsicum Cherrytime, Mini Mama, Golden California Wonder, Long hot Cayenne, Scotch Bonnet, Cayenne, Capsicum Hungarian Hot Wax, Capsicum Californian Wonder, Capsicum Marconi Red, Mini birds Eye.
Other: Cylindrical Beetroot, Swiss Chard, Rainbow Chard, Celery, Celeriac, Tamarillo, Cape Gooseberry, Spring Onions, Purple King Beans, Majestic Butter Beans, Beanette Beans, Sweet Potatoes.
All this is before I sow the majority of my beans and radishes.
Pretty much everything is up and doing well although I do have a few things yet to germinate. A couple of the eggplants – Listada di Gandia & Thai Green have yet to appear although they were planted after the others. I have sown Poblano chillies on two occasions so far and none have germinated. I will try again but I will wait until the weather warms a bit just in case. Also yet to appear are the Cape Gooseberries and the tamarillo. The Cape Gooseberries may never come up as the seed was very old but I am still hopeful of the tamarillo as that was sown with fresh seed.
I did look at it all and wonder where on earth its all going to go, particularly as its still months until the garlic can be harvested and that is using up a fair bit of bed space. The chillies and capsicums I think will stay in pots but the rest will need space in the ground. Oh well – it should be fun cramming it all in and in the meantime I will gaze encouragingly at my tomato plants. I took them out of the green house today as I want to harden them off for a couple of weeks before planting them out in October. Hope they will be alright on this, their first night without the protection of plastic.
What have you planted recently? Do you know where it will go when its big enough to plant out?
All those seedlings are a promise of things to come! They look so beautiful! You can never have too many; what you don’t find room for I’m sure you’ll give away to friends and fellow gardeners. We are heading into winter here, but I still planted some lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson and Australian Yellowleaf and the seedlings are just beginning to sprout. They are out in the garden and since growing is winding down here there is plenty of space.
That is true – I have promised some tomatoes to next door and most of the rest I will fit in somewhere (even if I jsut clutter everywhere with more black pots)… Funnily enough I have never heard of Australian Yellowleaf lettuce.
I don’t think it sounds plant nerdy to say, ” its just so exciting watching plants germinate”. I think the exact same thing. (Or maybe I am nerdy in the same way.) 🙂
I have been sowing onion seeds, and Swiss chard. I think the color was called “magenta.” The stalks are deep pink, almost red. I may have to re-seed some of it, because some of the seed didn’t germinate.
The Magenta chard sounds beautiful – I hope yours germinates soon.
We’re waiting for our winter onion sets and garlic to arrive but I am still sowing radish and we are also sowing green manure. Much less frenetic on the seed sowing front for us at this time of year. For us it is pick, pick, pick!
My picking is slowing at the moment, except for watercress, lettuce, parsley and mint there isn’t really an abundance of much of anything here at the moment. Glad you are harvesting lots.
Nothing odd or nerdy about getting excited as seeds germinate – at least that’s what I keep telling my husband! Your tomato plants look lovely and healthy. I’ve been sowing rocket and spinach in the hope of getting a few more leaves before things get just too cold for them here.
My tomatoes are looking happy which makes me happy – although I always find that they look best at this age and then once planted out something goes horribly wrong…..
call me a plant nerd too! You have lots of good looking seedlings! I always way over plant but it usually turns out all right since some die or get eaten anyway! I had 100 seedlings for fall and thought I would be giving some away but between the heat and critters, I am only down to 2 extras, and there is probably a spot for them that I just have done yet!
It’s funny I find that I tend to lose all of something or none of them. If only slugs would eat jsut one seedlings from each pot I’d be a lot happier!
Crickey, that is a lot of seedlings and a lot of variety! It should be fun. I have 3 varieties of tomatoes about to go into their second little pots ( brown berry, a zebra mix and broad yellow ripple currant), spring onion and garlic chives have just been planted out as have some lettuce – again a lettuce mix. In their first punnets still and going well are: dill, fennel, red marigolds, basil. The ones that havent gone so well are chillies which have been very slow getting up – I have only one tiny padron raising its baby leaves and the long cayenne have not popped up at all! As for eggplant, I have also found the Listadia Di Ganda are very slow ( they are so pretty though and perhaps worth waiting for).
There are many other seeds in my box saying, ” plant me “, but I am concerned about how well plants in pots will travel down to the new large patch.
I think one day you will have to post about your greenhouse. I think I am going to need one.
Greenhouse is probably too kind a description for the plastic coated shelving with plastic raincoat ensemble I acquired at Bunnings but I was thinking of posting on it anyway…. Do you find Dill transplants OK? I was under the impression it didn’t particularly like it?
I very admire the growth of your tomato seedlings Liz, mind are in the newspaper pots with a weekly nitrogen + seasol watering + in the coldframe but no where near your height. What are your water + fertiliser techniques to make them grow so healthy? I tend to have damping off issue that reduces my chances.
I have the same 4 tiers greenhouse and having the same dilema of compulsive excessive seed sowings, I wonder why I had trouble zipping down one day and realise it had bend into a sideway position due to the overloading. Do you find the lower bottom tiers in the greenhouse don’t seem to do well since the sun is hard to get through?
My capsicums and eggplants are very slow, I have purple & chocolate beauty capsicums, eggplants are tung ping & kamo. They sprout very easily on top of the heater but once i planted them in the soil blocks, they don’t seem to do well and lots of them became a feast to the slugs. I am now having to resow them inside in the plastic strawberry punnets but after 10 days still haven’t geminated yet.
My recent planted out into the Spring garden are bokchoy, spring onion, tuscano onion (transplant from seeds sowing since June), watercress (follow your experience, mind are doing very well from direct sowing, it won’t be long until i can start harvest them), daikon, shiso (similiar to basil from self seeded), carrot, broccolinni & PSB (I won’t expect a good yield this time due to a hot weather coming up), dill, spinash, lecttuce, coriander (a sucessive crop).
I sow my seedlings in a 70/30 mix of normal potting mix (with normal levels of Osmocote) and perlite. I then give them a dose of Powerfeed and Seasol once they get or look like getting their true leaves. I pot up once they have at least one set of true leaves. Very rarely do I get damping off (having said that I sowed some Tomato seeds in May as a test and I lost half of them to damping off but thats really the only time I can think of it happening. I have lost a few to slugs this year though grrrr.
Re: the greenhouse I try and put my waiting to germinate trays on the bottom levels and then move then up when the seedlings appear. I have to move some out in order to do that though – I have tomatoes hardening off at the moment. My capsicums and eggplants are super slow too. Some of mine are taking a month to germinate but with one exception they do eventually (although the germination rate of many of them hasn’t been great). Really glad your watercress is doing well.
Hi Liz, funny but my garden in Northern hemisphere looks about the same: The only time to garden here is fall and early winter. Only days get shorter… 🙂
Your climate must be really challenging, is there enough time for the plants to mature in Autumn before you get frost? Actually do you get frost?
After the ‘Great Gippsland Greenhouse Tragedy’ my seedlings are not at all impressive, like yours. I’ve replanted but they will take a while to germinate, again. Some things were rescued like ‘tomatoberry’, dill, Italian parsley, chives, eggplant, wombok, pak choi and beetroot, though.
Now that I’ve re-sown, the greenhouse is full so I went out and bought another, today! They didn’t have the taller one so I got the next size down. I reckon I might fill it next weekend!
I’m impressed with your range of chillis! I’ve only planted ONE type but I know I will buy established seedlings of every variety I see. I can’t help myself.
Wow – another one! You will have a lot of seedlings, how exciting!!!! One type of chillies is simply not enough!!! He, he, he. Actually I often wonder why I don’t just grow one type as I turn most of them into sambal oelekh anyway. But they do look pretty….
Wow, I now have serious tomato envy! But I’m with you in appreciating the joys of seed raising. Be patient with the Thai green eggplants, mine took almost 3 weeks before they showed themselves. I’ve tried to be restrained with my seeds sowing as last year I completely ran out of windowsill space, I had that many seeds inside germinating. This year I’m hoping by sowing seed again in October when I plant out my indoor stuff I’ll manage to not overwhelm myself. If I had a greenhouse it would just encourage me.
I suspect the greehouse thingy may have been a mistake, but a fun one – I like the idea of succession sowing when the first lot are planted out – I think I shall borrow that idea myself.
You are so organized, and so ambitious! I know what you mean about trying to find the space for everything. I’m sure I don’t have enough space for everything I’ve sown either. I find that the most difficult part about the seed raising process is discarding the weaker seedlings. I just want to save everything, but not enough space (or pots!).
Rest assured I’m not organised in any other aspect of my life, but I like seed sowing so I do make time for it. Ah ambitious – I had to laugh my partner uses that word with the kind of rolled eye look that suggests ambition is a synonym of foolhardy, stupid and from a planet somewhere to the left of Alpha Centauri. Having said that you are both probably right…
Call me a plant nerd too! I’ve got a bunch of stuff sown and mostly ready to plant out for fall/winter veggies – celery, celeriac, Lacinato kale, Couve Tronchuda cabbage, Purple Peacock broccoli, Golden chard, Flamingo chard, Red Salad Bowl lettuce, Buttercrunch lettuce, Butterhead lettuce, Super Sugar Snap peas, and my newest experiment – saffron crocus bulbs. It’s going to be a lean winter garden this year since I’ve only got three of my four raised beds going and they are pretty full of summer stuff.
oowwaaa… that is a lot of seedlings out there… like you, I enjoy growing from seeds too although I am not really a good ‘seed-germinator’… good luck to your plants…
I found a huge slug in my mini greenhouse – it was swiftly dispatched but I am missing quite a few cucurbit seedlings…
completely missing the boat on the seed sowing. Will have to get going this week. better to have too many than none at all. There is never enough vegie patch, every year a little extension, a little less lawn.
I’ve been banned from digging up any more lawn, something about wanting a place for the kids to play – I stopped listening after no…
Thanks for the seed again. I am late at sowing will sow them this weekend.
You will be way ahead harvesting summer veggies.
I just sowed some tomato seeds last week.
I hope the soil outside is warm enough.
But I spied some self-seeded tomato around the garden.
Your seedlings look so healthy.
I’ve had a few self seeded tomatoes come up too – they don’t seem to need as much warmth as i think they’re going to.
So encouraging to see others who go crazy with the seed planting! I was looking at all the seedlings popping up yesterday in trays and wondering where on earth they are going to find a permanent home. I promise myself I will carry out staggered seed sewing, like a ‘good’ gardener should, but it never eventuates! Once I get those seed packets in my hand I just have to whack them into soil. This year I utilised the empty coffee pods as seed raisers and stood them in egg boxes, so have lots of portable seed containers. I grew lots of veg, lettuce etc throughout Winter in a makeshift polytunnel other half built me ( 3 yr old grandson refers to it as ‘Nana’s cave’) and was delighted with the crops that remained frost free here SW of Sydney.
Liz, I know exactly what you mean about digging up more lawn! We are down to one area only of lawn, the rest has been pulled up to devote to veg beds, native gardens etc.
Spring is such an exciting time around the garden.
I love the idea of your Nana’s cave! Staggered seed sowing now there’s an idea….every year I have this fabulous notion that I will succession plant and then every year I get over excited, sow too many seeds and then have no room to do any successioning anyway…oh well fun isn’t it? Glad I’m not the only one! I do like the idea of using coffee pods as seed trays – very inventive.