Re-potting in March: Part One

It was a little chilly and also a little rainy on Saturday, but I managed to pop onto the balcony and re-pot a few of my vegetables from the mini-greenhouse, which have been overwintering for a few months now and the Sweet Pea plants, which I've been growing in doors.

Last weekend I bought a new large pot with a lovely red flower design on it, which I filled with Grow Your Own Growbag compost from HomeBase, as this has up to 6 weeks feed within the soil and some water crystals. I planted the seven Sweet Pea plants that have grown to around 20cm tall, at the back of the pot supported by small canes and at the front of the pot I planted four of the thirteen Cabbage plants with collars, which have been overwintering in the mini-greenhouse.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date March 2012

As for the rest of the Cabbage plants, these were re-planted in the long tube that recently held my herbs. Along with some of the old compost from the herbs, I added the last of the organic compost I had, mixing this together and then I added a top layer of the GYO Growbag compost, with some water crystals added for extra help with watering. The last nine cabbages were then planted around 10cm a part, with a Cabbage Collar added to each plant.

On the balcony itself, I re-potted the Carrots and Leeks, which have been slowly growing and again have been overwintering. The Leeks were separated and around 5-7 Leeks were added to each pot, as for the Carrots, these were carefully moved into larger, deeper pots for better growth, and all of these again contained the GYO Growbag compost and water crystals.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

To help some of the other plants feed better, I also added a Miracle-Grow Controlled Release Tablet to each of the Garlic and Onion bags, as these will slowly feed the vegetables when they are watered for up to six months.

And all of the plants and vegetables on the balcony were then well watered.

The First Sow Of The Year

Over the recent snowy weekend, I started to sow my first batch of seeds of the year, which I always start at this time of the year (mid February). Having already sorted through all the seeds I've managed to collect, earlier in the month, I then got to prepping for this years vegetable sowing.

                                                       Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: February 2012

Tools
6cm Pots
Compost (peat free)
Spoon
Watering Can
Newspaper
Label Sticks / Pen
Seed Trays

As I only have a small balcony, seed sowing for me, usually happens on my dinning room table, which is covered with newspaper. Having selected the types of vegetables I wanted to grow (see picture & list below), I would have normally sown these into my propagator, into individual pods, but this year I have decided to sow the seeds into small 6cm pots, as I have a lot of different vegetables I'd like to sow.

I filled each pot with peat free compost, leaving a 1.5cm gap from the top, watered them and then added 5-7 seeds to each separate pot, making sure I added a label stick so I knew what was in each pot. A small layer of compost was then laid on top of the seeds and these were then placed into a seed tray. After all the seeds were sown, and they had been carefully placed in seed trays and then placed on a south-east facing windowsill, around 2cms of water was added to the trays, and has been carefully topped up when needed.

                                                       Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: February 2012

Vegetable Seeds
Tomatoes (x3 varieties) - Moneymaker / Gardeners Delight and Roma VF (Plum)
Chilies (x5 varieties) - Thai Dragon / Inferno / Tabasco / Pepper (Hot) Hotscotch and Pepper Cayenne
Peppers (sweet)
Parsnip Duchess F1
Brussels Sprout Evesham Special
Sweet Pea (Old Spice Mixed)
Aubergines Black Beauty Organic

Herb Seeds
Chives
Basil Sweet Genovese
Dill

I haven't covered these with any form of lid, as I'd like to see how they do without this, and as they are in the sunniest part of the flat, over a radiator, I'm sure it won't harm them. In fact, its now been a week since these have been sown and I already have Sprout and Sweet Pea seedlings appearing.

                                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: February 2012

The herb seeds were sown into re-useable herb pots, which my boyfriend bought last year. The pots were put through the dishwasher, before being used again. As with the vegetable seeds these were also filled with peat free compost, watered, seeds added and then filled with more compost, and then watered again.

                                                       Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: February

Now everything is happily sitting on the windowsill and I just have to wait for even more little seedlings to appear over the coming weeks and the sun to come out.

Prep for the 2012 Balcony

One of my first planned jobs for the 2012 balcony garden, which I've been doing over the last two weeks, has been to create a list of all the seeds I've been collecting. These have either been bought or have come free in garden magazines.

I've collated them all into a handy excel growing chart (this does look better in excel), along with the last year of sowing, best sowing and planning out months and when to harvest, see chart below:

Hopefully the chart is going to come in very handy, when I start sowing seeds for the New Year and also in planning what I can grow over the months ahead. I'm hoping I can keep a steady supply of vegetables growing this year, as last year I only tended to sow a few things at the beginning of the year and then not a lot after that, until the Autumn / Winter months started.

Prep will soon start on sowing Aubergines, Peppers (sweet), Chili Peppers (Thai Dragon / Tabasco / Inferno), Sweet Peas and Tomatoes, once I've had a quick trip to the local garden centre for new compost and maybe a few more Leeks, though I already have a few overwintering at the moment, there may be room for a few more.