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Another six-pack
All six of the seed varieties that I sowed experimentally in a cardboard egg-box have now germinated; the rocket, which germinated first, was getting extremely leggy, so this morning I decided it was time to 'plant them out' by cutting up the cardboard to put the individual cells into pots of compost. Hacking into soggy cardboard with blunt scissors (I wasn't about to use my good sewing scissors on the job) turned out to toss the unfortunate seedlings around about as much as decanting them from a standard plastic seed-tray would have done, and I'm not all that convinced about the ability of the roots to escape their cardboard confines, since the bottom of the box was still pretty sturdy. Maybe it will break down faster when it is entirely surrounded by damp soil.
In any case I was unimpressed by the experiment, and had consciously resolved not to bother with it again. Then this afternoon I was given a freebie pack of cherry tomato seeds that had been a special offer on a magazine cover; it's pretty late to start sowing them (should have been started in March or April for outside plants as opposed to a greenhouse, according to the packet instructions) but I decided it wouldn't hurt to try the experiment. It's billed as an 'early' variety, which may mean that if they start late they still have time to squeeze in some fruit before the autumn frosts ;-)
So, having just finished eating another half-dozen eggs, I carefully planted six individual tomato seeds into one egg compartment each, and we shall see if they germinate. I also scattered some more in the pot outside into which I'd planted the tomato-seed-on-a-towel I'd attempted to save from my very successful variety last year. Ironically enough I was wondering over the last couple of days whether one of those towel seeds might finally (after over a month) have germinated, since there is a single seedling just emerging that looks different from the various self-sown weeds/cornfield flowers that have popped up in the barren pot over the past six weeks; none of the latter have been doing particularly well, and again I wonder if the tough paper towelling has been preventing them from getting their roots down. (Although when you think about the way wild plants manage to push up through tarmac, germination is inherently pretty determined!)
(I'm starting to wonder if the "little slow-growing red seedlings" that are gradually forming into what looks like rosettes might have germinated from evening primrose seed, as they do bear a slight resemblance to the two plants that are definitely the successors to last year's self-sown evening primrose, growing around the base of the old stems. But I don't remember scattering the seed all over the place like that!)
If anything like all those tomato seeds germinate I shall have a severe embarrassment of plants, of course... I planted some more basil around the solitary two seedlings that germinated out of all the seed in that pot (which are now, very, very slowly, putting out their first two true leaves, having taken a similar six weeks for the process), and today half a dozen or so fresh seedlings started to show their heads, so I shall definitely have to do some thinning there. I have been uprooting the spare coriander and putting it in salads.
Apparently I did get the yellow poppy seed to germinate after all; the leaves and growth habit are so different from the other poppies that I totally failed to realise that that was what the 'mystery weeds' from last year were! In fact the only reason they are still around is that I did think they were poppies when they first came up, and carefully potted them on, and then when the leaves came out different I hung onto them over the winter just to see what they would turn into after all.
Then I planted a second batch in an empty pot early this spring, couldn't remember what I'd planted where, and thought that the plants with the ragged leaves that came up quite thickly were probably from some wildflower seed I remembered harvesting down by the river. (I still don't know if any of that ever did germinate, as I can't remember exactly what it was!) So again I thinned them and left them to see what they would turn into; eventually they started resembling the others, though their growth habit was different. I also had a third set of very low-growing mystery plants that had overwintered around the edge of the pot that had once held an autumn-germinated Oriental poppy which had died in February's late snow.
Then about a week ago, quite unexpectedly, these three assorted but vaguely similar sets of unknown plants all started sending up what were unmistakable poppy flower buds, and the truth dawned on me. I'd found the 'missing' yellow poppies, and in fact I had quite a lot of them! Today the most advanced ones have started showing a faint trace of yellow along the edges of their bud-cases, and the identification seems definite. The Oriental poppies that are showing up in all sorts of pots where they arguably shouldn't be (mainly because I couldn't be certain which of the poppy seedlings might not turn out to be the elusive yellow variety, and thus preserved them all...) are nowhere near sending up flower heads as yet, and I don't know at the moment for certain if I have any red field poppies at all. Some of the plants in the main 'poppy pot' are definitely not Oriental poppies (some of them are definitely corn-marigolds!), but they may turn out to be yet another selection of yellow ones ;-p
In any case I was unimpressed by the experiment, and had consciously resolved not to bother with it again. Then this afternoon I was given a freebie pack of cherry tomato seeds that had been a special offer on a magazine cover; it's pretty late to start sowing them (should have been started in March or April for outside plants as opposed to a greenhouse, according to the packet instructions) but I decided it wouldn't hurt to try the experiment. It's billed as an 'early' variety, which may mean that if they start late they still have time to squeeze in some fruit before the autumn frosts ;-)
So, having just finished eating another half-dozen eggs, I carefully planted six individual tomato seeds into one egg compartment each, and we shall see if they germinate. I also scattered some more in the pot outside into which I'd planted the tomato-seed-on-a-towel I'd attempted to save from my very successful variety last year. Ironically enough I was wondering over the last couple of days whether one of those towel seeds might finally (after over a month) have germinated, since there is a single seedling just emerging that looks different from the various self-sown weeds/cornfield flowers that have popped up in the barren pot over the past six weeks; none of the latter have been doing particularly well, and again I wonder if the tough paper towelling has been preventing them from getting their roots down. (Although when you think about the way wild plants manage to push up through tarmac, germination is inherently pretty determined!)
(I'm starting to wonder if the "little slow-growing red seedlings" that are gradually forming into what looks like rosettes might have germinated from evening primrose seed, as they do bear a slight resemblance to the two plants that are definitely the successors to last year's self-sown evening primrose, growing around the base of the old stems. But I don't remember scattering the seed all over the place like that!)
If anything like all those tomato seeds germinate I shall have a severe embarrassment of plants, of course... I planted some more basil around the solitary two seedlings that germinated out of all the seed in that pot (which are now, very, very slowly, putting out their first two true leaves, having taken a similar six weeks for the process), and today half a dozen or so fresh seedlings started to show their heads, so I shall definitely have to do some thinning there. I have been uprooting the spare coriander and putting it in salads.
Apparently I did get the yellow poppy seed to germinate after all; the leaves and growth habit are so different from the other poppies that I totally failed to realise that that was what the 'mystery weeds' from last year were! In fact the only reason they are still around is that I did think they were poppies when they first came up, and carefully potted them on, and then when the leaves came out different I hung onto them over the winter just to see what they would turn into after all.
Then I planted a second batch in an empty pot early this spring, couldn't remember what I'd planted where, and thought that the plants with the ragged leaves that came up quite thickly were probably from some wildflower seed I remembered harvesting down by the river. (I still don't know if any of that ever did germinate, as I can't remember exactly what it was!) So again I thinned them and left them to see what they would turn into; eventually they started resembling the others, though their growth habit was different. I also had a third set of very low-growing mystery plants that had overwintered around the edge of the pot that had once held an autumn-germinated Oriental poppy which had died in February's late snow.
Then about a week ago, quite unexpectedly, these three assorted but vaguely similar sets of unknown plants all started sending up what were unmistakable poppy flower buds, and the truth dawned on me. I'd found the 'missing' yellow poppies, and in fact I had quite a lot of them! Today the most advanced ones have started showing a faint trace of yellow along the edges of their bud-cases, and the identification seems definite. The Oriental poppies that are showing up in all sorts of pots where they arguably shouldn't be (mainly because I couldn't be certain which of the poppy seedlings might not turn out to be the elusive yellow variety, and thus preserved them all...) are nowhere near sending up flower heads as yet, and I don't know at the moment for certain if I have any red field poppies at all. Some of the plants in the main 'poppy pot' are definitely not Oriental poppies (some of them are definitely corn-marigolds!), but they may turn out to be yet another selection of yellow ones ;-p
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I used to get a lot of self seeded red poppies, but haven't seen any for several years. But the yellow ones suit that particular corner of the garden better in any case.
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