I started a few weeks ago with the sweet peas, lots of sweet peas. They gave me immense pleasure last year throughout the summer and lots of other people too as I gifted as many as I’d kept. The thing about sweet peas is that you have to pick them pretty much as soon as they flower in order for them to keep on producing flowers otherwise they just wilt and seed pods are produced and goodbye flowers. Seed pods, those things that hold the seeds - something I should have actually stopped and thought about instead of trawling seed catalogues for yet more sweet peas - although why deny myself a shopping opportunity? It's a tough one. The old plants were yanked up and put in the compost bin. I am not proud of this and I will try and do better this year on that score (I tell myself).
I watched some videos on sowing and growing the peas. Last year I just planted them straight into the soil and hoped for the best. Not knowing what the seedling looks like is tricky though, I could be nurturing weeds (again) and pulling out the good stuff. These seedlings are now sprouting and growing and growing. They're not looking like they do in the videos. They're long and thin with just a couple of leaves on the top. I'm not sure how that's supposed to work. It'd be like planting cooked spaghetti. I do a little more research. My north-facing house that is surrounded by large trees is apparently not conducive to growing things. Anything. Obviously, I face palm myself. This is why I wanted an allotment in the first place. These poor leggy things were just growing and searching for any light they could find. Duh.
More research on the internet. Grow lamps. Who knew? Last year I planted most of my stuff straight into the ground so this interesting (shopping) world of hydroponics is new for me. It's an investment. Everything I have bought this year for the allotment is an investment and I need to invest plenty. "Investment" is a good justification word. Amazon same day delivery and I receive the grow lamp. Looks like a desk lamp with a clamp and two bendy arms and funny coloured bulbs. The instructions are minimal being "1. Plug in and bend the lights in the direction of the seeds", and "2. Good for cucumbers, tomatoes and medical cannabis". I'll stop there.
Ninety percent of my seeds are now sown. Now I've got my heat mat and grow lamp I am the sowing wonder woman. I have planted lots of flower and vegetable seeds now that I know they've got at least fifty percent chance of actually growing and I am feeling invincible. The bathroom has been turned into a grow house. Pots, compost, vermiculite and propagators on the floor, around the bath, by the sink. Luckily this is not the main bathroom. The lamp produces a lovely violet glow, visible through the window to any passers by on the street behind. I reckon it looks extremely dodgy apart from not having silver foil over my windows. I am waiting for the police to knock on the door and when they do, I cannot wait to show them how much better my new crop of sweet peas are doing.
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| Definitely not a sunbed glow |