New Moon

Hello and welcome back! I have had a long pause in my blogging (and crafting) while I became a mum and moved house from London to the Essex coast .. the last two years have been a demanding but exciting time for me and my family. I've loved every minute, but as I am not someone who welcomes upheaval, generally, I can't say I'm sorry to at last feel settled. As the autumn leaves have begun to fall, I have found the ideas starting to flow and the urge to craft and create becoming overwhelming again. And now that I have the time and inspiration again, I am so looking forward to reviving Earth and Tree and reconnecting with like-minded bloggers. So New Moon, new beginnings! Please bear with me while I re-arrange the blog furniture and make myself comfortable, then settle down and enjoy.

Kitchen Greenhouse

This is going back a few weeks, now, New Moon at the beginning of March to be exact..



I spent a happy afternoon at the kitchen table with the radio for company, surrounded by newspaper, compost (not always ON the newspaper, sadly!), milk cartons, seed packets, tin foil cat food trays, cardboard tubes and miscellaneous other extremely handy bits and bobs.. attempting to construct little comfy homes for my seedlings. There was something very cathartic and Blue Peter about it all, I haven't had so much fun in ages..

Elsie the cat was very helpful in attempting to eat, biff or sit upon my carefully organised chaos and has since been most displeased that the sunniest spot in front of the kitchen window (where she sun-worships and watches for passing pigeons to make the Ack-Ack noise at) is now occupied by a number of recycled DIY incubators of dubious construction.

Nevertheless, I got some herb seeds planted in my 'proper' propagator (try saying that quickly!), potted on the February seedlings and generally got very very grubby. Brilliant!



I picked up a tip from somewhere (will try to find it and post the link) recently to use the cardboard cartons that soup or milk comes in for plant pots, as when you want to plant out you can just snip down the sides with scissors and slide the plant out intact. So I did this for a few of the bigger seedlings. I also used the bottom half of plastic milk bottles (with drainage hole punched in the bottom) as plant pots. And I'd been saving the plastic trays from food shopping to use as drip trays to stand things in .. or as lids for incubators, if transparent.

In fact, things might be getting out of hand now because I can't look at anything now without working out how I can re-use the packaging.. its addictive!

---> LINKS:

yoghurt pots as mini greenhouses

make seedling pots from newspaper

make recycled seed pots

Sowing seed

At the first signs of dusk I planted my first seeds of the year. Always a lovely thing to do, looking forward to the season ahead.

I have a little propagator with individual cells so that I don't have to prick out the seedlings. This first batch was to get my tomato plants started. I'm growing a big beefsteak type tomato called 'Brandywine' that I love. Alongside I started some Pot Marigold to companion plant with my tomatoes.

I've also done an early batch of Sunflowers - one of my favourites, so I want to see them in flower as soon as possible. I'm growing two dwarf varieties, as they will be living on my roof .. and the tall ones would just sail away!! One day, when I have a real garden, I'm going to have huge sunflowers. I was really inspired by a house I saw last summer where someone had trained them up round their front door - it looked amazing!

Sown February New Moon. Germination time approx 1 to 2 weeks. Recommended germination temperature 18 degrees C (so might need a hot water bottle!)