Beans, beans, beans!

The weather is still not very spring-like. Finally got around to sowing beans indoors today. I have always had 4 broad beans per square and that seems about right to me. In Mel's book it says 9 per square for bush beans, and 8 per square for pole beans. So with this in mind I sowed enough for 9 per square - except the Masterpiece broad bean which will be 5 per square (mostly because I had run out of tray space!). That is the plan at least, assuming they all come up.
The Masterpiece and Moonlight beans are old ones from last year or the year before. Moonlight did not do well last year but I am giving it a second shot.
The Borlotti beans and some broad beans called Aguadulce Supersimonia are ones which I bought from a farm shop near Derby. They are Italian so may not be suited to this climate.
The French beans are from a Nordic company It will be interesting to see how they perform.
Below is the plan as I see it. The empty spaces will be for carrots.

Jerusalem artichokes	Moonlight runner beans x9	Broad bean Masterpiece x5	Broad bean Masterpiece x5
French bean Lord Nelson x9	Borlotti bean x9	Broad bean Italian x9	Broad bean Italian x9
French bean Lord Nelson x9
Rainbow carrot  x16	Rainbow carrot  x16

Carrot Week!

This year SquareFoot Gardening has added a twist to Carrot Week. Instead of sowing Nantes carrots we are sowing any coloured ones. I chose Rainbow F1 from Johnsons. They are Nantes carrots but in various shades of white-yellow-orange.
Past experience shows that Carrot Week is too early for Iceland but you never can tell what the weather will be like. I sowed one square as usual, and one square of pre-soaked seed. All I did was station three seed together on kitchen-roll, covered with another sheet and then wet the whole lot over night. Then today I snipped the groups of seed off and placed them on the prepared bed. Actually, thinking about it, someone once suggested that you could just bury the whole sheet of paper.
If there is any difference in speed of germination then I may try that next.

I also re-potted some more of the indoor seeds. I also re-potted the cucumber plants... I have not been treating them very well, and let them dry out once. I noticed that they have some flowers, tiny cucumbers even, and I am not sure if this is a good thing or a sign that they are stressed. Anyhow, they should feel better in bigger pots.

Three of the purple garlic are now showing their tips. Perhaps that is why the garlic lady grows this sort, because  they come up late? The strongest growers are the one-year old bulbs but the rest look OK too.

Indoor seeds cntd.

I am a bit disappointed with the aerogarden seed system. Quite a lot of the seeds have failed to germinate so far, and some look as though they never will as they are mouldy. Next year I will try covering them to begin with to keep off mould spores in the air.

The kale and broccoli look as though they do not get enough nitrogen so I have re-potted the larger ones, using paper pots. I need to get more compost and do some more of them. I also re-potted the basil which had begun to flop over.

The dahlia is quite tall now and the lily of the valley beginning to show. The onion/leek plants look quite good and the parsnips too - tend to dry out very fast so need careful watching as far as watering goes.

The weather was very mild for most of March. The garlic is doing amazingly well, or at least it was until the temperature dropped to -7°C! I hope it is OK under the layer of fleece.

Hmm, carrot week has started http://squarefoot.creatingforum.com/t14487-carrot-week-2013#149119 so I need to get that sorted out as soon as it is warm again.

Potting

Just noting that today I potted-up a dahlia and some lily of the valley which I had bought.

The parsips are coming along fine and the onion/leek are still alive. I have put them in the cooler balcony room.

A couple of Seville orange pips have germinated too.

Up already!

Just checked the seeds and was excited to see that some are already germinating - less excited to note that they are the basil and broccoli :-) Oh well, at least the system is working.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Seed time

I sowed the following in the Aerogarden today
               
Broccoli    Calabrese       4
Rosemary             3
Parsley    Moss curled         4
Sage        14-28        2
Strawberry    Alpine       8
Kale    Toscana            4
Busy-lizzie    Safari       10
Delphinium    Magic        6
Petunia    Purple lady      10
Geranium    Pelargonium     12
Basil    Large leaf            2

I miscalculated so actually have one station un-sown, need to fill that tomorrow.

The onion/leek and cucumber are now upstairs and I will move them into the cool balcony room as soon as I can.

I am planting the parsnips as they germinate, still need a few extra seeds. One has come up but no leaves yet.

Parsnips

I decided to try germinating parsnips indoors this year. A guy on Gardener's Question Time BBC radio said that you could germinate them on damp kitchen paper and then when roots appear use tweezers to transfer them to open-ended peat pots to grow on indoors. then plant out when warm enough. He said to put three seeds in each t and thin to one once established outside.
If I can do this then it could give me an extra month or so of growth, even longer maybe. Today some of the seeds have already germinated so I have potted them up. Normally I would be looking to sow them outdoors in May so if they don't suffer any shock going outdoors I will have gained as much as two months! Hm, perhaps I started them off too early.
I potted them up in newspaper puts - wrapped double paper around a narrow jam-jar. I put potting compost in the bottom and firmed it well, then topped up with seed compost so the seed will start in that and grow down into the stronger mix.

Cucumber and onion/leek seedlings all doing well.