The Sweetpeas Have Won!

I have been like an impatient child over the past days, constantly looking at my trays of seeds hoping to see the first signs of germination and slinking away disappointed, even tough my adult brain tells me it's way too early to see any progress just yet.

This morning, there were signs of growth!  Yippee!  A few of the sweetpeas had broken out of their seed cases and there were tiny green shoots trying to pull out the dicotyledons.  Oh, I am so excited - if I had a tail it would be wagging the whole of me!

We have been having a discussion on the Whitewicca forums about how to protect seedlings from the slimy army of slugs that many of the members suffer from.  Last year I lost an entire batch of calendula to the little monsters.  The lovely Melia from Texas suggested using plastic Dr. Pepper drink bottles as mini cloches.  She chops the bottoms off the bottles, leaves the screw top off and pops the bottle over the baby plants.  Now, I guess that early on it will look pretty silly and like you're growing a crop of fizzy pop, but as well as keeping the slugs off till the plant is big enough to protect itself, it keeps them warm and keeps the worst ravages of wind and weather from damaging the plant.

We have the big two litre bottles and they are always a nuisance to compact to take to recycling, as they're not collected here in Somerset, but yesterday I cut one in half, removed the screw top and lopped the tips of the concertina base off the other end and I now have two mini cloches!  I know it will look a bit inelegant, but after last year, I know I can't depend on our toad to eat up all the slimy buggers.

Now that we have a bit of trellis and some wires up, I think I shall be able to grow a small fruit tree, espallier style, against the back of the garage.  I was talking to Kim about it last night and in my impatience was going to try to get out of the house today to find one.  Then I realised that he had never had a fruit tree before and I remember how excited and proud I was when I bought my first trees and planted them, so I am going to be patient so we can go out together and buy something on Saturday.  It will have to be self fertile, but that will still leave a lot of choice and it will be wonderful to watch it grow and develop.

Right, I had better get back to work - I have three websites to finish for the weekend and I want to get another sneaky peek at my sweetpeas - come on tomatoes, keep up!