Sowing the seeds

We've started sowing a few things indoors and with the amazing weather, I've been able to stick some things in the ground very quickly. Once they were ready, we put them in the cold frame. The picture shows the cabbage and cauliflower seeds in the background with the borlotto, squash and aubergine in the foreground (I cheated with the aubergine and bought the plug plant online). The borlotto seedling has since been planted into the side bed.



















Last years pea and runner bean seeds were sown straight into the ground a few weeks ago. The runner beans have been very slow to germinate - with one finally appearing the other day! The peas on the other hand were quite quick to appear. They'll need thinning out. Mr has put together a slightly different arrangement of supports for the runner beans and peas this year, with the pea supports in place long before they were sown. This will make it easier as the peas got quite tangled on our first attempt. Last year we tried using a combination of "pea sticks" (twiggy branches) and plastic support from the garden centre - it looks like netting but with much bigger holes. This is then tied to bamboo sticks which are arranged in a line about 30cm apart. The pea netting worked much better than the pea sticks so we're sticking to that this year.

Pea plants aren't very tall - probably about 30cm (1ft) at most but they like to climb. They have these lovely little string curly bits which wrap themselves around the nearest branch/pole. They remind me of little whips (a bit like the one Indiana Jones uses...). I like the pea plants so much, I'm thinking about growing sweet peas next year as they grow in a similar fashion.

The pics below show the supports. In the first pic you can see the green netting (click on the pic to enlarge). The peas may get a bit more (photo) attention this year than the other plants due to my fascination with how they grow.