Seeds and plants.

"Preparing for planting"  was a good name for the last post about the vegetable garden....Tuesday I took some seeds down to the new kitchen garden - the one we got ready last weekend - and put in a tray each of aubergines, peppers and 2 trays of 4 different types of chilli.  The trays are some that I recycled from the recycling centre a couple of years ago, they each hold 45 plants and are much bigger than the ones you buy plug plants in.  Yes, that's a lot of plants - especially chillis - but not everything germinates and it's better to have too many plants and  vegetables than not enough.

I have half-sunk the trays into the ground and filled them - hopefully they'll keep warm and moist  till germination and then when they are big enough to be moved, they won't have far to go to be planted out.   I also put in the first courgettes, cucumbers, spinach and another row of radishes.

Thursday morning - back up to the original vegetable terraces where I put in seeds of  beetroot, carrots, kohlrabi, parsnip, swede, turnip, celeriac, kale and leeks.  Some are new this year, celeriac and kale we have never tried so I'm keeping my fingers crossed....if this first planting comes up I've  got time to put in some more.   Little and often seems best.  Same with the carrots and beetroot, we plant every few weeks to get a continuous crop.

And then in the afternoon in went basil, coriander, cumin, chives, marjoram, mustard.  Lots of everything as most of the seeds are self collected from last year although I do an extra row of packet seed - just in case.

Today I had to go into Cadiar and saw that - amongst other plug plants - there were tomatoes and cauliflowers for sale.  Last year we bought cauliflower plugs from the market....but they turned out to be white cabbage!!   so today I bought 20 labelled plug plants for 3 euros.  Last time I bought a cauliflower it was 1.50 so I've got 10 plugs for the price of 1 full grown one.

Last year we bought a variety of tomato called Trés Cantos which were excellent.  Almost like a beef tomato, full of flavour but needed a bit of staking as they grew to 1.5 metres.  Today I bought 30 of them plus a variety called Simona which (should!) only grow to 80cm so no need to go and cut more caña for support.  Today's plants I have put into half-bottles on a shady terrace to get bigger as we don't usually plant them out for a few weeks......   cut a pop bottle in half,  punch holes in the base and use as a plant pot, you can see the roots developing and more importantly see when the soil is dry.

All being well, we should see lots of growth soon.