Garden, Late January

[sam_t]

There are two snowdrops and a hellebore flowering in my garden. They're both tucked in a corner at the base of a rose, the snowdrop just pure white buds at the moment and the hellebore bearing buttery nodding flowers. All sorts of exciting unidentified leaves are pushing up through the soil - at least one hyacinth, I think, but the rest are all surprises. I'm a bit worried about what will happen if winter decides it's going to put in an appearance after all, but it's good to see all these signs of new life.

I pruned the roses at the weekend. This may have been a mistake, but they really needed it and with all the warm weather they're not going to stay dormant long.

I've also discovered that the local garden centre sells packets of wild flower seed, so I've picked up a handful of woodland plants as well as the herbs and sweet pea seeds. The plan is to get a few herbs going for the kitchen windowsill and work out what I'm going to do with the rest of the garden. I don't want to do anything drastic yet but there's definitely room for a few foxgloves and suchlike. The border with the roses will be widened for the herbs and possibly a few vegetables, but this needs planning, too. I've never really had enough space to need to plan, before, so this is exciting and frustrating by turns.

The other thing I've been thinking about is chillis. In past years (although not last year, because I was moving house) I've been given a couple of chilli plants by a friend with a greenhouse who usually has a surplus if it's been a good year. They've done reasonably, if not spectacularly, on a west-facing patio, and now I have a south-facing patio I want to grow them again. However, friend-with-the-greenhouse isn't growing any this year because he's moving house, so I need to work out whether I can grow my own from seed without the use of glass buildings. Apparently, he's found that you need to start them off early as they take ages to germinate, so I can't wait until the weather's warmer and try them outside. My shed has a south-facing window (currently filthy, and with a shelf hanging on by its fingernails) - could I grow them there until the Spring, I wonder? Or will I just forget about them and end up with a shed full of half-frozen wilted seedlings? All the chilli instructions I've found assume that you have a greenhouse, which is not an option, really. A cold frame might be a possibility if I can work out where to put it - however, most of the space I have is either fairly shady or already in use.

Hmm. This gardening lark seems to require more Brain than I thought.

Comments

[serrana.livejournal.com]

Peppers are sufficiently tetchy that I've given up and been buying them from a farmer's market vendor. My "garden window" and soda-bottle cloches are just not sufficient to keep them happy.

Around here you can get them in either the little pots or the bigger pots (about 15 cm) and you really do want the latter; the former are cheaper but they never get very big.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Is it just the heat while they're young that they're missing, do you think? I may end up having to buy young plants from the garden centre, this year at least.

[serrana.livejournal.com]

I think it's the steady heat, and also the light. I could get a heat mat and a grow light and grow them in some sort of enclosed container, but honestly the setup for that would be so much more than the $8-10 I'd be spending per year on starts that I don't think it's worth doing. If I were growing a huge number of plants it probably wouldn't be, but...particularly since I've found a CSA I'm happy with, the backyard garden is more for fun/educational purposes than out-and-out food production.