Got My Own Grape Vine!

I was walking through Homebase today to get some more compost and I spotted a tiny pots wih a healthy little plant in it.

It was a very small vine plant. I have wanted to grow grapes for a while but an established plant can cost quite a lot but this little pot was a tempting £4! It's small and may not work but I thought it was worth a gamble. I stuck it in a medium sized terracotta pot with a couple of large canes for support when it needs them.

Whilst repotting, I spotted that it had exceptionally well developed roots.

Pineberry About To Flower

Great news! My Pineberries that I overwintered last year are healthy, leafy and starting to send out flower stalks. Hopefully this means I will see some interesting fruit later on in the year.

Strawberry Popcorn

A couple of months ago I stumbled across a very interesting crop: Strawberry Popcorn, it gets its name from its small, deep red ears of corn that resemble a strawberry.

I planted them a couple of weeks ago and now they are showing signs of life.

First Crops Of The Season!

My very first crops of the season have started to come. I've enjoyed a handful of French Breakfast and Bright Lights (pictured) radishes.

Veg Planter Progress

My veg planter is already started to come to crop. It's overflowing with mustard bite salad leaves and I've collected my first radishes (see next post).

Today I planted another batch of seeds including another section of Mustard Bite, Purple Haze Carrots, Lambs Lettuce and Hilds Blauer Radish.

Proto Blueberries

As mentioned recently, my two main blueberry bushes were absolutely covered in flowers, now some have already dropped off and started to form fruit.

New Dwarf Cherry

Last weekend my mum dropped me round another present! A dwarf regina cherry tree, just in case my duo grafted one fails to take (it is as still bare and brown as it arrived).

As it's a dwarf tree, I've decided to pot it. I grabbed a bargain from my local independent nursery: a 40cm frost resistant terracotta pot for only £7.99!

Potting Peppers

We sat down, stuck the telly on and embarked on a mammoth repotting session of all my peppers. The three varieties I'm growing this year are Spectrum Peppers (top), Orange Baby Peppers (bottom left) and Gusto Purple Chillies (bottom right).

They are still all inside for now but I may move some to my greenhouse soon.

Pine Lemonades On The Way

When my mum gave me my first Blueberry bush last year, she also bought me a rather exciting Pink Lemonade variety. It looks very healthy and leafy but as far as fruit went.... not a sausage! And I was desperate to see the hot pink coloured berries and taste their promised sweeter-than-Blueberries flavour!

I am sure that this year will be a different story though as I'm already seeing bundles of flowers on my existing plant. I'm not yet sure if my newer plant will have any action in its first year though.

Bargain 35cm Planters

On a recent trip to our local Tesco I spied a bargain - 35cm Planters (plastic) at 2 for £3. I grabbed four (but wish I'd gotten more!)

I planted each with 3 plants of one variety of strawberry: Leo Alba, Alpine Red & White mixed, Yellow Wonder and an unknown variety of traditional (red) strawberry that I grew from runners last year.

Chilean Guava Budding

Walking round my garden after work this eve I spotted the first tiny but vibrant pink buds on a couple of my Chilean Guavas.

I've never grown them before so I am unsure how long it will take for them to mature to flowers but from the pictures I have seen on the internet they will look spectacular when they go off!

Leo's Ready For Their Last Move

My Leo Albas are pretty much ready for their final move of the season and are fast outgrowing their current pots. I may need to purchase a couple of new long troughs to house them.

Strawberries Preparing For The Season Ahead

The strawberries that I overwintered are prospering well, for the most part (a couple have been ravaged by small brown slugs). The healthiest have started to release the first flower stems.

All Gold's on schedule

Just a quick update to show the recent growth on my Allgolds. New canes continue to pop up and the largest (pictured) is climbing high above the ground and amassed a large growth of vibrant green leaves.

I am fairly confident that I will receive fruit this autumn (in their first year) as promised on the back of the labels.

Toscana Progress

Finally, my Toscana seedlings were large enough to re-pot out of the propagator. They're still quite small so I'll watch them closely.

I have ordered 6 superplugs from Suttons Seeds (£5.99 + p&p) as a backup as I want to see a flourishing plant, complete with hot pink flowers and vibrant conical fruits (with crimson pips) but these will not arrive until next month (May).

Anablanca Strawberries (Pineberry)

Arrived today, my order of 12 Anablanca Strawberries from Sutton Seeds (£12.99 + p&p). I was expecting potted plants so I was at first shocked by the size of the package that turned up.

Removing all the packaging, I found a small bag with 12 (well, I actually received a smaller 13th) bareroot plants.

Anablancas are a less common variety of strawberry, bearing white fruits, closely connected to the more famous 'Pineberries', retaining a pineapple tinged flavour.

I planted 7 up in a long planter, 4 in a square planter and two in individual small pots. This is my back up plan should my original Pineberries not produce fruit for the 2nd year running.

Yellow Wonder

I also repotted 3 or my 4 successful Yellow Wonder alpine strawbs. The seeds overall were unsuccessful but these 3 plants seem to have exploded into life over the last week.

The are easily recognisable from my other alphine varieties and have now started to split their stalks, growing new sections on existing stalks.

Too Many Toms?

Just finished another mammoth repotting session, adding another 12 Tomato plants (various varieties) to my army, ready to be moved to my greenhouse.

It's quite impressive seeing them all together like this, very pleased with the fact that I grew them all from seed.

Chilean Guava Kapow

In the post today and right out of the box: 6 Chilean Guava plants. I had heard of them before but on spotting a great offer: Suttons Seeds, 6 plants for £10 (plus £4.99 p&p) I decided to give them a go.

Supposedly the plants were a favourite of Queen Victoria, they flower with an almost fuscia looking bloom and fruit small red berries that look similar to blueberries but promise a taste of wild strawberries.

The plants are hardy down to 10°c so they will need to come inside next winter. They will start to flower from May and can grow 1m - 1.5m.

I am very happy with plants I received and they look very healthy and have a lot of good growth (there even appeared to be a couple of tiny seedlings sharing a pot with one plant). I look forward to tasting this usual fruit.