Greenhouse!

Having already overflowed the bay window I grow my chillies in, I guess I should build the greenhouse I got in the January sales. It's been sat in the hall waiting for me to get round to it.

To be fair, nobody wants to start digging soil to put slabs down in the ice/snow/wind of January do they?

Here's the base. Literally just dug over the soil and flattened it, and eased the slabs into a vaguely flat pattern.

It's a tiny greenhouse really. If I'd realised how small, I might have gone for a size bigger. The main problem I will have is the roof is too low - but, I guess we'll see.

The greenhouse, for the record, was this one from homebase. It cost me £151.99. :)

I'm aware that it has bad reviews too. But, seriously, £151.99....for a greenhouse.....

Grow Update - 8 Feb 2014

I'm afraid there's not much to say, everything is growing pretty slowly at this time of year and obviously no signs of fruits or flowers, so the updates are slow too.

2nd batch of seeds are germinating nicely though:

Nice quick germination even on the bhut jolokia this time. The only one that I'm waiting for is Tabasco, which is turning out to be quite a stubborn one! Perhaps a dodgy batch of seeds...

All the pre-xmas plants are nice and green which is a relief. Today's quite sunny too, so I'm sure they're appreciating it!

As a side note, that arrangement pictured above, of 7 pots to one big pot tray, works really well!

Peter Pepper Seeds!

For those of you who haven't heard of Peter Pepper, then you need to go google it now.

It's singly the most rude plant known to mankind. I mean, seriously.

So, when I had the chance to get some seeds? Of course I did!

Good news too - they have germinated. How did I germinate them? Nothing special, just the heated propagator. Took exactly 7 days, which is surprisingly short too. Must be nice and toasty in that propagator!

Overwintering!

Due to having such issues last year with mites and yield, I wasn't actually going to overwinter any plants. In fact, I hacked them off at the stumps and threw them out.

But - I took pity on one scotch bonnet plant in the end. Its leaves weren't all mottled and sick looking like the other plants, so I kept it around.

I did however hack it right back to a stump. Literally. Look:

 The leaves you see weren't there when I hacked it. They've grown. And look, green shoots out of the main trunk!

Actually against all odds, I think we might just have a good start for this plant this year. I'm looking forward to the prospect of some good scotch bonnets!


Overwintering, apparently, isn't so hard after all.

Growing Update

Nothing spectacular to report.

Growth seems pretty slow at the moment, but I think its partially due to the small size of the plants (they have grown relative to their size immensely!) and partially how little sun they get at this time of year!

Super Chilli is doing best...

And Bhut Jolokia isn't too bad either, these always grow slower, considering these were planted around the same time in December, I don't think this is too bad a result! 

In the next few days, i.e. the beginning of February, I'm going to plant the next batch of seeds. This will be a more serious event - this is when you're supposed to plant them. I'll be doing some seeds of every type!

A New Macro Lens - And Some Minor Trouble...

I'm happy to have got hold of a 1:1 macro lens, finally. 1:1 means the image on "film" (digital in this case) is exactly the same size as in real life. That means an insect like a small spider, or a tiny leaf from a seedling, will take up the entire camera photo. That means I can now take some stunning close ups.

Although, of course it's still only capable of taking photos as well as I am :)

If you fancy macro photography, you can't beat a 1:1 macro. Most "macro" lenses aren't true 1:1 macro, the difference is, well, big.



And so on to the bad news. Well, to be quite honest it's nothing. One of the three bhut seedlings has a funny leaf curling and browning. I imagine it's probably going to recover but in all these kinds of cases I absolutely always quarantine. You just never know.

Probably just light+water burn or perhaps got a bit chilly overnight....but can't be too careful

Growing Update: All is well

Well mostly.

Last years thai super seeds are doing great!

A Mixup Of Cherry Bomb, Thai Super, Apache...

 Bhut Jolokia growing well, although I notice some of the leaves look funky - more on that later..




And finally - a side note for entertainment. Ever planted Basil? They puff up into these white jelly blobs as soon as you add water. Insane...