So I realised my first big mistake the other day. (I’m sure it’s the first of many, since I seem to be incapable of not taking a rather gung-ho approach to all of this and just doing things without properly reading up on them.)

I chitted the potatoes in the dark.

I don’t know why, but I thought I’d read somewhere that that was what you had to do. So, since my memory has proved itself time and time again to be completely infallible, I just went for it without looking it up anywhere. Mmm.

Who knew a skateboard decks would be so handy when gardening? (For avoiding muddy knees).

Aubergine seedlings kicking off.

Before realising this I planted out some of the Red Duke of York tubers that were doing ‘well’. As you can see, the sprouts are rather anaemic-looking, as anyone would be if they’d been shut up in the dark for weeks.* However, they’re now a more of a dark purple colour, which, after frantically googling pictures of Red Duke of York potatoes chitting, seems to be kind of what they’re supposed to look like anyway. So perhaps all is not lost. I still have the Charlottes, which were much slower to sprout, and some more RD of Ys that are now on my windowsill. Best way to learn and all that…

I’ve sown some squash seeds, vertically so that they don’t rot. And the aubergine seedlings are really kicking off. Crazy times around here.

* Speaking of growing things in the dark, this new programme with Raymond Blanc and (sigh) Kate Humble growing and eating things at Kew Gardens is better than a slap in the face, and has a pretty interesting bit about forced rhubarb.

Our windowsill is covered in pots and seed trays. There’s a motley crew of sweet peas, marigolds, one dill and the three aubergine varieties. I sowed two batches of aubergine seedlings, around a week apart, and so far I’m not having much luck. I sowed the first batch on 18th Feb… so it’s only a week and a half I suppose, and apparently they can take up to three weeks to germinate.

Our cupboard is really ugly.

We also have these guys lurking in our cupboard. They’re the seed potatoes (from the Organic Gardening Catalogue). They have to sit in the dark and then they’ll “chit”, which is a horrible word. There’s something slightly creepy about them, I’m not sure what it is.
This was the only amount available to buy at the time. It’s going to be a lot of potato plants. Probably too many, but we’ll see. Maybe I’ll just do some guerrilla gardening and plant them in local parks/sling them over our neighbour’s fence. That said, we did make this raised bed, which we’re planning on using mostly for the potatoes:

I’m hoping my photos are going to get nicer as we get closer to summer. Less depressing, patchy, muddy grass and more glistening rays of sunshine and greenery and flowers and #nofilter rather than #shouldprobablyhaveusedafilter.

The weird netting situation going on, artfully constructed by yours truly, is because the bushes and the massive f-off palm tree just there like to shake their leaves all over the soil, which is annoying. We’re slightly worried that the massive f-off palm tree is going to be leeching up all the nutrients from the soil with it’s massive roots, but hopefully because it’s a raised bed it’ll be ok, and we can just hurl nutritious stuff on it all the time. Like mulch, cause we’ve got some of that.

These are the potatoes I kind of by accident grew last year (I half-heartedly planted a potato that had sprouted and it went nuts, but someone told me it wouldn’t make any potatoes. They were WRONG.). Yes I know it’s a pitiful amount, but still.

We’ll do better this year.