Pushing up the daisies

Back at home, safely in from the wind and rain, I set to work on some more seed sowing.
The seeds from last week are starting to show signs of life - I can see a few leeks popping up in the pot. So time to sow some more...
Last night I set out:

• more tomatoes (Marmande and Harzfeuer), oh interesting info about this tomato variety, Harzfeuer, that I got from Lidl for next to nothing... "(69 days) Amazing selection from from Germany. Dependable, disease resistant, beautiful and flavorful, it produces huge clusters of fruit. A hybrid Hellfrucht type tomato that translates to "Resin Fire" in english. Fruits weight 3 to 4 ounces and are a highly popular variety for market or home in Europe. Determinate." Hmm 3 to 4 ounces, so medium sized fruit of about 150 g. 69 days - is that from sowing to harvest I wonder? that doesn't seem long enough... that's 10 weeks. If they are sown now that means tomatoes in June...surely not?
  
• red swiss chard, called rhubarb chard,
• another tray of leeks (De Carentan winter variety),
• the first Brussel sprouts (Sanda variety, harvest starts in September it says),
• spring Batavia type lettuce (looks more or less like this...),
• and a tray of red and yellow dwarf marigolds (these are said to be useful planted throughout the veg garden to repel some pests, oh well they look pretty at any rate...).

I guess that is the last lot of sowing now until it is time to do the melons, squash and corn.
Also put out the second lot of potatoes (Bernadette, second earlies) to chit. Up on the high shelves in the pantry seems to be a good spot - not too warm and filtered light. The earlies had developed nice solid sprouting bits, perhaps a little long on some of them but they seemed firmly attached.They will go in the ground in a week's time, Easter Monday with a bit of luck.

Labels: chard, flowers, leeks, potato, seedlings, sow, tomatoes, winter