You know I like to try my hand at growing our veges from seed - quite unsuccessfully so far...

So, I reckon one of my challenges is that I don't have a green house to protect them and keep them warm as they start of - so my Honey has built me one!!  :-)

I was expecting a rough knock-together, but I should have known better!  This one is gorgeous, don't you think?

So I have already put it to good use by re-potting the heirloom tomatoes I started last month. 

This year's seed-raising experiment has been to start them off in soil blocks.  I am certainly finding it is easier to keep them moist so hopefully that is a good thing.  They don't seem to have grown any quicker but I do think next year will be the year I get going great guns!!!

Last Saturday was International Permaculture Day and a gardening group I keep tabs on had an Open Garden and SSS (Swap, shuffle and share – lovely!), so we dragged the kids off for an explore.  One was not at all happy about it, then of course said it was one of his best days ever – after he got to play with other kids, enjoy some very yummy morning tea and visit a great playground on the way home! 

I really enjoyed seeing, listening and visiting the permaculture garden.  The blurb had said they had planted food forests so I wanted to see it in action – and it didn’t disappoint.  One of the best things though was showing Michael.  He mentioned that he hoped that our food forest would look a bit “tidier”…lucky he said this to me, now I can aspire to that – I was quite happy with a ‘free-form’ food forest, but we can keep it tidier too.  Win-win, we will both be happy!

My best photos from the morning show you fairies, frogs and flutterbys J.

All lovely ideas for our place!  And I had to look it up, that is a Wanderer (Monarch) butterfly.

Back on the home front, I am determined to get some good plants from seeds this season, so I started some last week (on their correct moon day) and put them under little greenhouses.  Then today I have transplanted the ones that have sprouted, doing it while they are still tiny and planted deep as per Linda Woodrow’s advice (to minimise transplant shock – then you plant them out in the garden when they are nice and big to give them an even chance against bugs etc).

You can see the transplanted ones on the bottom tray, then one tray that I am covering with a cupcake carrier lid (works well J), and the top one is a hardware-store seed raising mini greenhouse (I lucked out and got it for $3 from the op shop J).  That one certainly retains the moisture the most, to be expected really as it is the only lid that ‘fits’.

Wish my little baby plants some luck!

The ongoing seedling experiment is proving interesting.  I am very new at raising seedlings with any objective, so I am finding it all good fun to watch it unfold.

Here are the latest photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The little pots are coming along nicely.  

We have even had some chives sprout – which I am as super excited about as I am about the pea seedlings.  We eat a lot of chives and I don’t have nearly enough to match our consumption – so this is good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But as much as the potted seedlings are coming along – the cloched seedlings have just taken off!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So it looks to me like we are heading towards a clear winner.  Being snug and warm seems to suit them as much as it does me J (must work on keeping me snugger and warmer!).

And a final garden photo for this week – we have plum blossoms and leaves J:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is our double-grafted plum-plumcot – we hope we will be able to tell which side is which when we get some fruit.