I made the most of the sunshine on Sunday morning, busy sowing my tomato and chilli seeds, I love this time of year when it gets busy with seed selection and seed sowing. The up cycled table that my husband Ian repaired last year comes in handy for potting seeds (but it is the dog grooming table!)
I bought a cheap garden propagator kit that came with three single cell inserts; cheap enough to throw them away because they normally split popping out the plug plants. Monty Don recently said on Gardeners’ World that it was a good idea to use single seeds because you don’t have to keep transplanting seedlings, that’s the bit I dread the most! You nurture the seeds, they germinate and then you have to up-root them and pot them on (and on) if they are tomatoes. This way you just pop out the whole plug and pot it on, simple. And the good thing about the single cell inserts, you can write the seed name in permanent marker, even better.
Here is a list of the seeds I started off at the weekend:
Tomato Terenzo (Thompson & Morgan) – a new one for me a high yielding red cherry tumbler type, no side shoots to remove and produces a high number of sweet red fruits which resist splitting (perfect, no fuss). I plan to put 2 or 3 planters in the gravel garden next to the veg patch for full sun.
Tomato Orkado FI Hybrid (Thompson & Morgan) – another first for me. Outdoor cordon variety perfect for growing in British indifferent summers! Early to ripen first trusses with an average 8 round, deep red fruits per truss. Well flavoured and another variety resistant to splitting and great for slicing.
Pepper Chili Numex Twilight (Thompson & Morgan) – an ornamental edible suitable for pots on the patio in full sun. Attractive dark leaves show off the fruit ripening from purple to yellow, orange then red. Bears hundreds of small edible chillies July to October.
Tomato Golden Sunrise (Cordon, Thompson & Morgan) – an attractive RHS AGM variety producing medium sized, well shaped, golden yellow tomatoes that add a lovely splash of colour to summer salads. Crops of Tomato ‘Golden Sunrise’ are early maturing and prolific with a sweet, fruity flavour that is quite distinctive. This cordon variety is suitable for growing in the greenhouse or outdoors.
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Tomato Torenzo – seeds per pack 6 – germinated 5
Tomato Orkado F1 Hybrid – seeds per pack 8 – germinated 10!
All potted up tonight and tucked up in my warm dining room
you can also visit my personal blog to find out how the growing season updates http://eightbysix.blogspot.co.uk/
I checked my seeds planted on the 16 March 2014 and I was surprised that all the tomato seeds have germinated. Sadly the chilli seeds haven’t but they do normally take a week longer.
The next seeds to sow are Golden Sunrise. I tried this variety for the first time last year. They are a lovely yellow colour and are sweet. They make a nice second choice cordon and grew extremely well in my veg patch with lots of fruits per truss. That’s why I’ve decided to grow them again this year.
My toms were planted two and a half weeks ago and had popped up over a period of two days, I get so exticed, always inpatient waiting for them to grow.