The Growing Challenge - first post

Yesterday the skies finally cleared and i was able willing to go outside and plant the beetroot, parsnip and lettuce seeds that arrived last week and have been itching to get into some soil. i have never planted beetroot or parsnip from seed before and, in hindsight, root vegetables have to be the most stupid things to try and grow from seedlings. So i opened up my trusty 20 year old tome on Organic Gardening by Peter Bennett (my husband also has one and when we first met, i took this as another sign that he was a pretty great guy LOL) read up on parsnips and beetroot and broke out the seeds. The look of the seeds actually took me by surprise, Im not sure what i was expecting but certainly not these. The beetroot seeds look like little horny pellets, quite prehistoric,


and the parsnip seeds are little spheres of paper which only required the sheerest covering of soil.


I laid damp paper down over the parsnips to aide germination and prevent loss by providing a thermal covering and fostering a more stable environmetal temperature. If i'd have had some underfelt to hand i would have used that as the paper needs wetting daily to keep it in place. The covering will come off once germination has begun, i dont want to stress the little critters by cutting off their light supply.



To use space as efficiently as i could, I planted the beetroot and parsnips in two rows on the outer curve of the lower garden bed, which is home to the potatoes that were put in a few weeks ago and have just sprouted, their new leaves unfurling, ready to be buried again. I was all for cageing the potatoes but my husbnd had other ideas, suggested we had enough room for them to be 'free' and that they didnt need to be mounded very high anyway. So, we shall see how they go.


The rocket is well on its way ( as are the rocks! yikes)


and the carrot cotyledons are nearly 1cm tall and are almost ready to be thinned. So this new seasons veges at the Rising household are finally underway.