AB Seedy

Had to get that pun in somewhere as I'm so proud of it! It's my suggestion for the name of the seed growing 'club' that a couple of friends and I have formed. The idea being we would co-ordinate our planting (eg, I do courgettes, Anna does lettuce), grow a few extra seedlings and then do a vegetal runaround, swapping excess plants. Of course this makes my germination rates uncomfortably public. In the past I would be quite sanguine about failures and just buy garden centre plants to fill any gaps. I really should have remembered that I did that with tomatoes for a couple of years on the run, last year was the first year I gave up and just went straight to the garden centre.

I think you've probably guessed where this is going already .....

Most of the seedlings are going well. I have a germination rate of over 50% for the sweetcorn which isn't too shabby. Borlotti beans more or less 100%, ditto courgettes, various squashes, chard, Cavelo Nero, calabrese etc etc

And my tomatoes? The ones which are supposed to be bounteous? Enough to share with friends? The value adding obscure varieties? Nada. Zip. Absolutely nothing. A handful of Tumbling Toms are struggling up but Mr Stripy are stubbornly staying soil bound.

In the meantime, I've taken my first delivery of leek seedlings from David. I had to share his seed tray idea in the photo above, I thought the cut off milk bottle was genius. Of course the size of the donation (the bottle in the photo, plus one more, plus a full conventional seed tray) causes me even more embaressment in having no tomatoes to give in return, let's just hope he likes courgettes ......