Plot 26 - Lovely gifts

I am quickly finding that being part of a growers community has brought me in to contact with the kindest and most giving and most helpful people I have ever known. I've been given a lot of seeds and great advice and books and often been lent tools. The children, just 2 and 4, are made to feel very welcome on the weekends when they come with me too, even when they are extra noisy! At this time of year there is a lot of potting on and planting out going on and as a clueless newbie I am often offered wonderful young plants to re-home on the lottie. These 3 inch high baby gem lettice seedlings and beetroot seedlings were a gift from a friend of my lovely pal Sue.

In fact the pics above and below are just half the plants I was given, the rest I passed on to one of my daughters teachers who had told me just that day morning that her beets had not germinated this year and how that was her favourite veggie from her lottie each year. I was a nice feeling to be able to share these with her and repay the kindness of all of the seeds she gifted and books she loaned me when I first got the plot.

I had a lot of fun splitting these up and potting them on in to their own homemade paper pots and have kept them in my kitchen by night and garden by day to harden them off.

When I came to the lottie last week I found this pot of wonderfully strong baby leeks, a gift from lovely Gary who is up one and over one from my plot. 

I've spent the past couple of weeks digging over a new bed for the beetroot and lettuce and leeks. Fingers crossed I can get them in the ground by the end of this week.

I hope you have had a lovely weekend
Jolene xx

Plot 36 - Reuse, recycle, making newspaper pots!

One of my lovely chums recently showed me a fab  blog post with reuse/recycle ideas for potting on your seedlings. I was rather taken with the idea of these sturdy newspaper pots so decided to give it a go. As you can see I've made a rather bumper crop, two newspapers worth. Follow the link above to see how they were done, the post is superbly easy to follow.

I'd already started to think about re-purposing deli and food trays with some holes punched in the bottom, this one contains cauliflower and cabbage seedlings which are ready for thinning out and potting on. One of the great thing about these paper pots is that you can plant the whole thing in the ground when your plants are big enough to go outside.
 

The clear container here is a supermarket grape punnet, these are the perfect size for 6 paper pots and they already have holes in the bottom for drainage.

I made so many paper pots today as I have started off some wild flower seed mix for kiddies corner on the lottie. I sprinkled masses of different kinds of flower seed in 3 large trays like the one in my second picture. With plenty of paper pots to hand it will be a cinch to prick them out and pot them on. We just need to eat more grapes now!

The paper pots are all round brilliant idea, loved making them and so practical!

Have a lovely day, Jolene