Indoors

As the weather is a bit damp, I'm turning my attention to things indoors. This will also stop me from getting cabin fever.

I'm trying a few things from seed this year - chillies, butternut squash, borlotto beans, yellow french - style beans, sweetcorn, coriander and kale. I've taken a pic of the seed packets to remind me what they are. Everything is outside apart from the chillies. The sweetcorn didn't do well last year due to wet weather so I'm giving them another go as I think we're going to get more sun this year.

The chilli seedlings are doing well in the dining room. I'm not making the same mistake as last year and putting them outside too early - I got overexcited when it was sunny for a few days. I'll wait until June before they'll go into the cold frame for a couple of weeks to harden them off then they can go out onto the path. (We only got a handful of chillies last year and no sweet peppers!!)

I also got some free plant plugs online. A few weeks ago the tomato plant was a few inches tall. Now look at it! Not sure when to plant it outside - the weather is far too wet and miserable so I'll keep it indoors near the window. It's been potted into a home-made newspaper pot. Only problem is that whenever I give it a water, it leaks everywhere! But it hasn't fallen apart yet which is the main thing.

Sowing the seeds

The sowing has begun. Now we put the veggie beds to use. So far the weather has been very dry - we haven't had any rain for weeks so the soil/manure is looking pretty dehydrated. We'll have to help the seeds along then (hopefully they wont introduce a hose pipe ban). In fact this is pretty freaky weather at the moment.

Mr made little trenches in the beds and tried to sow the seeds "thinly" as per the instructions. Yeah right - easier said than done. These things are the size of dust particles. We're only using beds 1 and 2 - the 3rd will be used for the runner beans, french beans and sweetcorn (which will be started in doors).

Beds 1 and 2 contain onions (spaced according to how large we want the onions - bigger spacing = bigger onions), spring onions, beetroot, broccoli, pak choi, rocket, spinach, salad leaves and many more things I can't remember.

The indoor seeds (chillies, sweet peppers, basil, mint and lemongrass) have been getting on quite well. But the basil, mint and lemongrass look quite crowded as I didn't thin them out earlier. I have grown attached to the little seedlings and didn't want to kill them off. So now I am paying the price as it makes it difficult trying to re-pot the seedlings without "hurting" them.

However I have managed to separate out 5 chillies, 5 sweet pepper and 4 basil seedlings into their own homemade pots. I am quite proud of these pots as I made them out of newspaper (following the instructions onhttp://www.wizer.co.uk/?p=29) . I have learned the hard way that the best size newspaper to use is the "G2" supplement section of the Guardian followed by any tabloid size paper (such as the local rag or freebies you get on the tube in London). Anything bigger falls apart when you put the soil in.

The idea is that the seedlings establish themselves, then you can pot them straight out (still in the pots) without disturbing the roots. The newspaper breaks down in the soil - recycling at its best.