Shoots and stuff

I tidied the porch last week, and now it is full of seedlings in a mixture of pots and trays. I get very excited about beans sprouting - such large leaves, pushing through the soil. Cotyledons. I can understand why Jack climbed a beanstalk.

I am not an organised gardener. I always forget to label my seedlings, and have to trust to recognising what they are when they grow big enough. I have runner beans and broad beans and some broccoli, and various herbs.

We still have a box full of chillis in the freezer that I planted in a haze. It was a mixed pack of seeds that would produce chillis of different strengths. It adds a new dimension to things to not quite know what you're getting when you reach for a chilli - every curry has a touch of Russian roulette about it.

We planted lettuces and stuff direct in the vegetable patch. We were restrained in our planting, and aim to succession plant over the next few weeks. This is something we have failed to achieve in the past, so perhaps we are getting marginally more organised.
The first year we grew radishes YM planted the whole packet in one go. There is a limit to the number of radishes you can eat. You reach it quite quickly, we found.