Next pricking out into cell/module trays - love doing this, extremely therapeutic and calming

youngers developing nicely =))

Maturity - like a painting

sorry, couldn´t help myself - hope I didn´t post too many

That is rather breathtaking. I never thought of starting my greens indoors. Really, with the tomato plants, I don't have the space. But my greens don't always do well direct-sown. Do you wait to plant out after last frost?

Nan6b wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 9:33 am That is rather breathtaking. I never thought of starting my greens indoors. Really, with the tomato plants, I don't have the space. But my greens don't always do well direct-sown. Do you wait to plant out after last frost?

cheers Nan =)

Wish you lived next door to me. I would soooooooooo love to share and trade tips and information with you.

Lettuce and salad leaves and the greens we are growing are really fairly to very frost hardy. If in doubt, cover them with fleece. I think there are some (white cloth thingy) in the pic above.

In fact, I have greens (coriander, chervil, salads, miner´s lettuce, spinach, beet leaves, kale, purple sprouting broccoli, mustard leaves) growing in our polytunnel now. The kale and spinach are at their sweetest when there is frost too.

All the greens mentioned can be grown outdoors too, just have the fleece on standby in case you get a really hard frost.

Nan6b wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 9:33 am That is rather breathtaking. I never thought of starting my greens indoors. Really, with the tomato plants, I don't have the space. But my greens don't always do well direct-sown. Do you wait to plant out after last frost?

Greens don´t do too well direct sown in my own experience, either slugs get to them or some other pest. I tend to transplant our greens when they are fairly big because of wireworms.

I usually sow greens in Feb and then plant out from March/Apr onwards. And sow again in Jul/Aug and plant out in Sept for the winter months.

I don´t usually plant them for the summer months because we have too much of other stuff to eat and the heat, they tend to bolt rather quickly and gets too bitter. And personally greens tastes a whole lot better in the cooler months especially spinach and kale.

If you have the time and patience, look through my ´guru´s videos whichever is of interest to you.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB1J6s ... JBg/videos

Karen, THANK YOU SO MUCH for posting your pics. Love them!!! Charles Dowding would be very impressed. Gotta run but will come back with questions. Unfortunately, we have some issues in South Florida that makes broadcasting seeds
a bit easier . But I have taken lots of workshops on producing transplants and love the process and drool over transplant
photos.

Glad you like em Elaine. Sometimes I can get so carried away.

check this thread about sowing and transplanting germinated seeds (I tried with celery, parsnips, salsify ) from wet paper towel and the next post with Charles´ seed sowing and transplanting seedlings videos. Hope this can help a little better, if you lived next door to us, haha! Think you would wish I would shut up! Aaaaaaand I have thousands of pics too from our garden.

Please do question away, I would love to share and trade info with just about anyone and everyone.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=221&start=20#p5722

Wow you sure do have a way with lettuce. Yes you are a great artist making gorgeous paintings with you plants. It's so lovely to look at that I would hate to pick them. What do you do with all of the lettuce?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm- maybe I could sow them in pots, rather than seed trays. I probably would get much better greens by sowing them in a protected manner.

Karen, I wish there was a separate greens/lettuce category (hint, to powers that be) that you could post these as well. Your photos and subsequent discussions it generates need a much wider audience than a ‘kiddy pool’ thread under containers. People are going to miss What a phenomenal grower you are. The ‘moon vibes’ or forces you harness are sure powerful. Elaine

MsCowpea wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 11:45 am Karen, I wish there was a separate greens/lettuce category (hint, to powers that be) that you could post these as well. Your photos and subsequent discussions it generates need a much wider audience than a ‘kiddy pool’ thread under containers. People are going to miss What a phenomenal grower you are. The ‘moon vibes’ or forces you harness are sure powerful. Elaine

Oh wow! Elaine. Me thinks I need to hide under the bed now. Don´t think I had anyone heap such high praises except for a neighbour (and one of my husband´s colleague who is into gardening as well - I give them young plants all the time now) who can kinda appreciate gardening but not as insane and as much as I do. But she does come over often and ooooh and aaahhhh at our garden when she visits. The other visitors only laments how much WORK! They cannot really appreciate the concept of No-dig gardening either. Except for a small handful of converts (husband´s colleague) The strange thing that I always wonder is if our garden is the actual evident, why aren´t they still convinced.

You will love this pic too… I love growing basil as well… the colours are soooooooooooo pretty and the smell… Just for you Elaine

Nan6b wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 11:37 am Hmmmmmmmmmmmm- maybe I could sow them in pots, rather than seed trays. I probably would get much better greens by sowing them in a protected manner.

Nan, just start out with a few, they will provide plenty of harvests. =) And you can most certainly grow them in pots, gave this to the neighbour´s daughter who lives in Berlin in an apartment.

MissS wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 11:31 am Wow you sure do have a way with lettuce. Yes you are a great artist making gorgeous paintings with you plants. It's so lovely to look at that I would hate to pick them. What do you do with all of the lettuce?

We have a seasonal day restaurant and we thought about serving salads as a side dish instead of the usual typical ´weiss krautsalat´ - like a pickled white cabbage thingy. It was a sheer waste of effort and time. They all ended up in the pig buckets. My hubby says it isn´t worth growing for these peeps. I picked them every other evening (it also depends on how quickly the leaves forms, they grow as quick as one picks - well kinda… lol) and washed them and packed them for him to bring to the restaurant the next day. (I am MUCH closer to the ground, he is amazed how I can bend and squat for soooo long - but it is back breaking tbh)

Once we had to be away for a few days to visit my dad who had taken ill and came back home… and this was how much I had to harvest … a 210 litre (48 gallons?) rainwater barrel!

We use whatever ´excess´ produce we have from the garden for the restaurant. The hubby says it isn´t worth serving these peeps such healthy and clean produce. Plus it is a lot ´cheaper´ for him to order what he needs. He would prefer I grew what we both would LOVE to eat for ourselves. Tomatoes!

I will be TOMATOING him to death this year!

Oh wow. What a harvest! My first thought is sell it to fancy 5 star restaurant but then it ceases to be fun and becomes a real chore as they want a constant supply and start dictating to you. Will most of your beds go into tomato production? And just a few for you and your husband’s salad fixins’. Elaine

Not a chance. Will be toooo much of a hassle with all of that. The neighbour even suggested I sell our produce in Berlin, peeps would ´die´ for organic produce. Thankfully, we are fairly comfortable, hence I grow for ´fun´ and share all our produce with friends, neighbours, just about everyone! Whatever excess is ´dumped´ into the restaurant. I have grown almost most imaginable types of vegetables or whatever that is interesting or that I can get my hands on seeds (mostly seeds) or young plantings e.g. yacon, edamame, physalis, honey melons, water melons, winter melons, pumpkins, aubergines, peppers, carrots, beetroot, all brassicas, bitter melons, sweet potatoes, radish- think there´s more that I cannot think of now.

My staple vegetables are now mangetout peas, garlic, bush beans (for the Dante too ...lol), asian long beans, leafy greens, sweetcorn and a couple of watermelons. And now my new pet project - as many different varieties of toms. Oh, I grew pepinos last year. Love it! Will grow them this year again. Will show pics soon. I saved the seeds from them. They were huge. I bought 2 different plants and loved them! They have a similar taste to honey melons but not overwhelmingly sweet, which we both kinda prefer.

I had a pet project last year too… grew over 200 strawberry plants from over 40 varieties! So we will likely have strawbs growing out of our ears this year

Nan or anyone interested - catch these 2 videos, very helpful for lettuce growing - there are salads grown in containers in the 1st video as well =)

oooops… think these need to be moved to the newly created forum for Lettuces etc Thanks Elaine =))

Sorry about it.. sometimes it is hard to know where to place certain posts, there´s always some kinda overlap.