Garden: Seed Sowing at Last

Finally, a few chilli and pepper seedlings are showing their faces.  Maybe spring is on the way, after all.

I don't have a heated propagator or central heating so have to be quite ingenious about getting those seedlings that need heat off to an early start  - peppers, aubergines and chillies.  I've found that if I wait for the weather to warm up enough for the seeds to germinate without help,  I can then be caught out by bad weather at the back end of the year.  We can have a first frost any time between mid October and late December.



Our house is south facing with big windows to catch the sun and make use of solar gain, plus huge amounts of insulation to then keep the heat in and the cold out.  A small 7kw log burner heats the open plan living space and the rest of the house, too, when the sun doesn't shine.  Which has been most days so far in 2014.

So where to put the seedlings for germination?  We do have an airing cupboard housing the hot water cylinder, but as that is only heated by any excess electricity generated by the solar panels and not needed by the house, it is not always warm.  See previous comment re: sunshine.

A first batch of chillies and peppers went into a small prop in the third week of January. On cold days they sat near the fire, and on sunny days next to the window.  At night they came into the bedroom.  Again, although unheated, this room benefits from solar gain, masses of insulation and warming from the log burner, albeit at the other end of the house.  Two bodies in the room, which is not huge, is enough to keep it comfortable for humans and plants.

Germination began after about ten days, as I would expect.  Two seeds per block with the weakest being sacrificed after ten days or so.

In the first week of February the second and main batch of sowing was undertaken.
Aubergines - Belleza Negra, Fengyuan & Cima Viola
Peppers - Marconi Rosso, Sweet Nardello, d'Asti Giallo, Californian Wonder, & Chocolate.
Chilli Peppers - Fatalii, Jalapeno, Serrano, Cayenne, Red Gambia, Tepin, Yellow Scotch Bonnet, Pssila and two saved from a Big Jim cross - hence BJ2012 & BJ2013

We have been buying fish in these blue plastic trays recently; they work really well for holding the coir jiffy plugs that I like to use for sowing.  They are more cost effective than buying seed compost; as soon as necessary the plants will be potted on into a combination of home-made compost, leaf mold and the cheapest bought in compost.

Under a bargain cloche; it was very cheap and then reduced and is incredibly flimsy.  Too flimsy, in fact to be relocated at night so I've resorted to a double layered bubble wrap duvet.

If we have a spring this year (we didn't in 2013: just went from continuous torrential cold rain to a mid-forties heat wave in a matter of days.  And back again!) the plants, along with tomatoes yet to be sown, will be planted out in late April or early May.

Tomatoes next.