Which meant I was tired come 3 pm, of course, but a nap solved that.
So - what the greenhouse has taught me.
Next year, grow at most three cucumber plants and put them in pots on the floor - they grow rather tall. (But I do have three cumbles coming already! Quite exciting it is.)[shrugs] I've never had a greenhouse before. I learn as I go along!
Use the low table (which the cumbles are on at the moment) for the tomatoes: they don't really have enough height on the staging. Then again, I have about five different sorts I'm trying next year, so I may have to grow the cherry ones on the staging anyway. Alternatively, grow them on the floor with the cumbles.
Courgettes are fine started off in the greenhouse, but do better outside once they're established. So far, anyway. Mine are in big planters so I can move them inside if the weather turns particularly bad.
Much as we love peppers and will happily eat them with nearly every meal, they do take up a lot of room, so don't plant so many next year! I'm still learning the fine art of pepper cultivation though. I'll get there in the end. (Oh, and I now have six sweet peppers sprouting - dead chuffed as I thought maybe the seeds came from sterile hybrids.)
Save the tall staging for smaller plants and ones I want to keep an eye on - it's easier than fighting my way through a jungle of extremely healthy and so-far-productive-looking tomato plants to reach them at the sunward side!
It's paying dividends already though - haven't had to buy any green salad stuff or any radishes this year (and home grown radishes are lovely, crisp and spicy without being too hot - even Kai likes them!) If the tomatoes carry on at this pace I won't need to buy any of those either. Ditto courgettes and cumbles, at least for a month or so. The pak choi has seed pods plumping up, so I'm hopeful of enough seed to keep us going this year, if not next, and the other oriental salad leaves look as though they're getting ready to flower too, so I may still get enough seed from them to keep us supplied.
Outside the greenhouse my pot of mint is looking great, the bronze fennel is still struggling a bit but, though small, looks fine, the Swiss chard is growing fast (though it's been nibbled, damn those 'pods) and the marrows have a lot of flowers coming. So pretty good all 'round. And it's great fun!
Back to the loom...
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