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Plant progress
I repotted what I think was a rose-campion -- despite its silvery leaves it was looking very wilted, and through the transparent walls of its yoghurt-pot it was visibly rootbound. As with the thyme I simply amputated great handfuls of the rootball after stripping off the disintegrating shards of the pot, then repotted the remnants into a new yoghurt pot -- remembering only afterwards that I hadn't actually remembered to pierce holes in the bottom of the later first! Fortunately I was able to do so with the plant in situ...
There were little blue/green insects/nodules all over the main roots when I did get it out of the pot, which may have had more to do with the general wiltedness than being potbound in itself -- the original parent plant survived in a ridiculously small seed compartment for a very long time before I eventually decided I ought to take pity on it and allow it to live! I scraped off as much of the blue as I could, and we shall see. I have other rose-campions, anyway.
The miniature rose is looking extremely sick, losing the few sprays of leaves that it had put out in the spring, and unless it throws up another new stem from the base, as it did last year, it may be done for. The sweetbriar, which on the contrary is very vigorous, is busy doing just that, with several new canes currently emerging round the sides of the pot! (As that is the largest pot, I tend to use it as a makeshift compost heap, dumping dead stems and uprooted seedlings into the centre of the pot and stuffing dried-out sticks round the edges, with the idea that all this will gradually rot down and in the meantime will help to insulate the actual rootball of the rose from undue heat and cold; it hasn't objected to this treatment (although I do have to keep an eye out for unintended seed germination in amongst the thorny stems!), but the result is that when it shoots it always does so in a radius around the outside, and not through the heap in the middle...)
I think we may finally have some chilli seedlings showing their necks, after three weeks (and at almost exactly the same date as last year!) The tomatoes are now looking incredibly vigorous, having been enjoying outdoor holidays for the past few sunny days, and are beginning to show signs of putting out true leaves. The two varieties are visibly different, with the darker Roma seedlings rather less advanced and vigorous than the bright-green towel-tomatoes, despite having germinated earlier, and being destined to grow into bigger plants! Possibly I used compost from different storage bags, with one holding a greater proportion of wormcasts to fibre than the other...
I think we have germination in the Gypsophila vaccaria, which makes four out of four for the brown-paper pots (though I was a little alarmed to hear it raining last night; the pots seem to have held together well, though, considering that they are just made out of two or three layers of paper bag). We definitely have germination in the purple assortment -- probably cornflowers.
I shredded the dried-up remains of the winter purslane, and did get some little reddish things that might possibly be seeds. (Or they might just be bits of grit from the soil.)
I tipped the whole lot into the dill pot (which still hasn't germinated; it always feels like forever when you are staring at empty soil and waiting to see whether anything will happen, especially when there is always a question as to the viability of the seed), along with some doormat-dust to cover them over lightly, so I now need to remember that if anything germinates in there that clearly isn't dill, it might also be purslane! Though the odds are against it, I feel. It isn't even the right time of year for sowing winter purslane seed...
There were little blue/green insects/nodules all over the main roots when I did get it out of the pot, which may have had more to do with the general wiltedness than being potbound in itself -- the original parent plant survived in a ridiculously small seed compartment for a very long time before I eventually decided I ought to take pity on it and allow it to live! I scraped off as much of the blue as I could, and we shall see. I have other rose-campions, anyway.
The miniature rose is looking extremely sick, losing the few sprays of leaves that it had put out in the spring, and unless it throws up another new stem from the base, as it did last year, it may be done for. The sweetbriar, which on the contrary is very vigorous, is busy doing just that, with several new canes currently emerging round the sides of the pot! (As that is the largest pot, I tend to use it as a makeshift compost heap, dumping dead stems and uprooted seedlings into the centre of the pot and stuffing dried-out sticks round the edges, with the idea that all this will gradually rot down and in the meantime will help to insulate the actual rootball of the rose from undue heat and cold; it hasn't objected to this treatment (although I do have to keep an eye out for unintended seed germination in amongst the thorny stems!), but the result is that when it shoots it always does so in a radius around the outside, and not through the heap in the middle...)
I think we may finally have some chilli seedlings showing their necks, after three weeks (and at almost exactly the same date as last year!) The tomatoes are now looking incredibly vigorous, having been enjoying outdoor holidays for the past few sunny days, and are beginning to show signs of putting out true leaves. The two varieties are visibly different, with the darker Roma seedlings rather less advanced and vigorous than the bright-green towel-tomatoes, despite having germinated earlier, and being destined to grow into bigger plants! Possibly I used compost from different storage bags, with one holding a greater proportion of wormcasts to fibre than the other...
I think we have germination in the Gypsophila vaccaria, which makes four out of four for the brown-paper pots (though I was a little alarmed to hear it raining last night; the pots seem to have held together well, though, considering that they are just made out of two or three layers of paper bag). We definitely have germination in the purple assortment -- probably cornflowers.
I shredded the dried-up remains of the winter purslane, and did get some little reddish things that might possibly be seeds. (Or they might just be bits of grit from the soil.)
I tipped the whole lot into the dill pot (which still hasn't germinated; it always feels like forever when you are staring at empty soil and waiting to see whether anything will happen, especially when there is always a question as to the viability of the seed), along with some doormat-dust to cover them over lightly, so I now need to remember that if anything germinates in there that clearly isn't dill, it might also be purslane! Though the odds are against it, I feel. It isn't even the right time of year for sowing winter purslane seed...