I normally would have posted about starting my seedlings however I just haven't got around to the post yet. Then weeks after planting them past and today I have just potted them up into their 3rd pot where they will stay until they are ready to go into there final pots for the growing season.

I sowed the usual variety of crops this year, keeping it simple:

• x2 red robin tomato plants - these are patio size and will produce baby toms
• x1 money tomato plant - the large salad size tomato
• x2 sweet bell peppers
• x2 hot patio chilli peppers
• x1 cucumber plant
• x1 courgette plant
• x1 butternut squash plant

Its been around 6 weeks since I got the raised bed set up and sown. The vegetables are well on there way, growing well - I think? The dog has since pinched most of my markers so I am not 100% sure what is growing where now. However she has stopped getting on it and flattening the poor plants.

I plan to start cutting a lot of the salads which are growing this week - you can see the large mixed salad leaved at the back have grown nice and large and have to been spoiled too much buy the intense afternoon sun like I feared. In the top right corner I have just planted my cucumber plant - its a bit slow growing however I am hoping it will start growing faster outdoors.

In the front left row is my second crop of carrots I really need to thin these followed on with lettuce, pak choi and I think beetroot?
The middle row gets a bit muddled I think there is onions, chard, spinach and spring onions growing.
The Back row from left is leeks, mixed salad, marigolds and cucumber. Although the leeks could be onions and the leeks could be middle row? Haha who knows - I guess I will eventually find out and make a note for next years crop rotation.

My garden is very narrow and small, it is roughly around 8mx2m. So I tend to use one side of the garden to grow the majority of my plants in this small space. I would happily use both sides, however we currently don't have the space for this as we need easy bike access in and out of the garden.

With this limited amount of ground space you may be surprised to hear I am attempting to grow winter squash. Winter squash (butternut) tends to be a ground dwelling plant and would happily cover a 4ft x 3ft raised bed on its own! This is where vertical gardening comes in! By training and supporting the squash within a cage you can get it to grow upwards rather than out. I have not attempted this before - its going to be my first try. However I have read and seen on you tube that with a little bit of help it can be done. So I have planted both my squash and courgette into a separate large container each ready to start making the support around them.

The recent weather has resulted in some very happy plants. My roses are growing incredibly well with little sign of pests or blackspot this summer. The lilies are getting rather tall and look like they are also going to be another wonderful summer display. I also purchased a Hydrangea this year which was a little bit slow to show signs of growth, however has finally started to shoot leaves.
Among these plants I have 2 mixed summer flower containers and some marigolds growing in the raised bed.

Despite Lily trampling the raised bed a few times when I first sowed the seeds, the bed is growing well. You can finally see each of the squares growing seedlings - each at different speeds. Since my previous blog I have thinned down the lettuce and bok choy which was growing far to closely together. The mixed salad leaves I have left to grow further, although they are crowded they are doing ok and its preventing some of the leaves burning in the afternoon sun.

One thing I have noticed which is due to the pup getting onto the raised bed is that some seeds were mixed across over squares. Mostly the odd carrot, salad or chard seedling. I have decided to leave the odd seedling in place as many of them will grow and be eaten before they become a problem for the leeks and onions - which is mainly where they were spread to.

I mixed up another batch of my 3 part compost and decided to use a spare container to grow another set of lettuce, spinach and chard. I have been keeping my eye on it and I can see seedlings slowly starting to emerge, pushing up through the compost. This was mainly an experiment to A) attempt at getting some correct spacing between plants and B) seeing how little space I can actually get away with.

The bell peppers, chilli peppers and tomatoes appear to be doing ok. The Tomatoes are the red robin variety so will not grow as large this year and may only need a slightly larger container to the one they are already in. The first flowers are starting to set on them so they will soon start being fed.

The bell peppers & chillies appear to be smaller this year, I am not too sure if it is because I have put them outside slightly sooner or because I used a compost which had no food added to it (cheaper wilko variety). I will be potting them on soon to their larger containers and will add some manure which will hopefully help.

Sowing seeds in rows! How do you do it? Especially with the likes of the tiniest seeds such as carrots and mixed salads! My seedlings are coming up in the raised bed and its looking like an order of chaos, not lovely structured rows.

I think I am starting to see my first errors in this years sowing.

My temporary built cage / protection netting has been really rubbish. The dog has been getting through it, along with cats! so some of the soil is really turned up, messy and in some placed dented.
Im going to take some time to redesign the cage making it super animal proof this week.
It is my first time having a raised planter and seeing the seedlings grow is brilliant. However they are really bunched together and all over the place. I definitely need to spend more time sowing the seeds in rows which is easier said than done! As you can see in the pictures I am going to seriously need to thin out a lot of the seedlings, however I am going to let them grow on a little bit more first!

If you have any tips on sowing your tiny seeds I would be very grateful to hear them!

Its  been a good few weeks since I sowed the first batch of seeds. They have been growing really well on the bathroom south facing window. I finally got around to potting them up to 5 litre pots - the final stage before they go into their final positions. I don't really know if it was the right time - or if maybe it was a bit late to pot on. However I generally go with when I can either start to see the roots at the bottom of the small pots or if they appear to slow down in growth. As you can see in the second picture I think it was a good time to pot up.

Its been a bit longer than I planned to get this post up. However I have been super busy at work so have not had the time to update this blog. In the last post I decided to grow some more plants than last year (even though I originally stated I was going to grow less). I guess the gardening bug kicked in and I wanted to challenge myself even further.

The Raised bed came whilst I was away and my lovely neighbours who were looking after the cats managed to take the parcels in for us. Along with many bags of composts!
I planned it out and placed it where I know is the best position and got building!

In my previous post I did state that I was only growing a few fruit & veg this year. This however has kind of gone out the window. I have been researching a lot about square foot gardening - which is ideal for small spaces and allowing you to grow a variety. After some careful thought and consideration I decided to go all in and test out a 4ft x 2ft raised bed.

The raised bed will allow me to divide the area into 8 sections (1ftx1ft). I have decided to grow the following:

• Spring onions 
• mixed leaf salad leaves
• Marigolds x2
• 1 cucumber plant
• Spinach
• Carrots
• Onions
• Lettuce

This weekend the weather was glorious, it was warm and sunny for most of the weekend here in London. Just what I needed to sort the front and back gardens out.

I have decided to get some clip together decking this year similar to the type Ikea do, which you can pick up and store in the winter. So after getting the hubby to help me, we started in the back garden first deciding where we want the decking to go!

We settled with the top part of the garden as you walk out of the back door, for two reasons - it would stop us (and the dog) kicking up stones into the house and it also made sense! Otherwise it would be walking across stones to get to decking?? Nah!

So we had to measure and push all the stones back to reveal what was underneath and it was mainly concrete and rock. After a bit of levelling out its pretty much good to go. Just need to order the tiles..
I will post some pictures up of this once it is finished as I think it will look pretty nice.

After that we rearranged and put into place all the plants and trees that I have built up over the past year during my container gardening, Some new plants since then:

I purchased a pack of 6 ornamental grasses - 2 of 1 type. These have been planted up into the trough with my lavender.

I have also purchased a magnolia tree - its currently only small arrived in a 9" pot so it has a lot of establishing to do.

I also purchased a hydrangea which again is currently a few twigs in a pot :)

I have purchased a camellia tree also, this will be the last purchase this year as it will use my last spare plant pot :) Hopefully it will arrive this week.

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So I realised I haven't posted here in a while and now its a new year and spring is coming! I thought I would update how my first fruit and veg growing went this last year! There are a few things I would certainly do differently this year.

First thing, I am not going to grow runner beans. They grew and grew and grew and did incredibly well. We also got a lot of produce from them. We had the 4 bean poles climbing up a wigwam in a large deep tomato grow bag (the reusable kind). They were very thirsty so drank a lot of water but that was not the issue. We just didn't eat them, Im not a huge fan of runner beans. The main reason I grew them was a) they are easy first time vegetables to grow b) did I mention they were easy.

The tomato plants were really strong too, we had so many tomatoes from them and I still have around 40 in my fridge. I didn't seem to get many issues with these guys which I was surprised at because I expected them to be easy to catch blight etc.

The pepper plants were ok, however they did not grow to a very large size and none of them turned red, so were all green. They tasted nice but this year  I have bought a sweet red bell pepper to grow, it does say mini so they may still be small?

The chilli pepper plants did really well, I cook alot of spiced food so we were constantly cutting them off and using them in so many different dishes. These guys also turned red and had such a nice kick to them.

Carrots! after the first batch being a bit of a disaster - I replanted them which they didn't like! so ended up throwing it away. I decided to grow a second batch, after around 12 weeks of waiting I did get around 2 - 4 meals worth of really yummy baby carrots. They did not grow as big as I expected however I think this was due to them a) being two crowded and b) not on the full sun side of the garden. So this year less seeds planting and more sun! Im starting to sow these next month!

Managed to get some nice strawberries, but not that many? I may buy a few more this year in addition to last years plants (which have survived and are growing!)

Overall I was happy with my small crop of vegetables I did make the mistake of not feeding them enough tomorite so this time I will follow the labels directions and stick with it.

I have started them indoors again which is the same as last year, around end of Feb. I have cut down on the amount of the same vegetables and im trying a smaller tomato variety this year. I will get 2 different types of peppers growing and perhaps the one chilli plant. I have replaced growing beans for a squash and courgette which I will start next month indoors. A new addition to growing veg I am sowing some marigolds and petunias. In the hope of repelling the nasty pests.

If you have anything you think I should try to grow - let me know! I am a container gardener and have a small garden - but happy to try anything else you would recommend!

Update on the plants, a few (2) have been eaten by some bugs or overwatered? But most are doing so well and fruit & veg is growing! I am looking forward to being able to eat some of the crop however it will be a few weeks yet. 

The runner beans grew to a wonderful size whilst being indoors. They got to a point where I had no choice but to pot them up into their final containers and add the supporting wigwam. They were then put outside at the end of April and sadly I think the temperature shock killed it back significantly. They were too large for me to lift in and out to acclimatise sadly. I decided to keep them outside and came back to it today to cut the dead leaves away. I am happy to say a lot of new fresh growth and developed and the plants are now fully adjusted outside. So other than a slight knock back and potentially a little later harvest, I don't need to completely regrow them from seed.

I decided to restart with the carrots *sighs*. I checked on them hoping some were starting to form by now. However they were all just leaf, I will not try again to transplant them. I have re-sowed some carrot seed straight into the container I purchased for them today. Its nice and deep and will prevent me from disturbing the taproot again. I have placed it into the mini plastic greenhouse to keep warm and boost a quicker germination (hopefully).

The mixed salad leaf has taken off the second time around and I have already harvested a small batch which we had with one of our dinners last week. Its still fairly young so it will be interesting to see how it tastes as it ages a bit more. I have some space in the trough to start planting another batch so we keep a continuos supply for the summer. Im thinking of adding some rocket as well to mix it up a bit.

The tomato plants have finally been planted into their final positions also, I think a few cold nights got to the older bottom leaves, however they are both growing well and the new top leaves are looking lovely and healthy. I will be making a cage support for them at the weekend. I did find around 5 snails sleeping in the grow bags, so I have removed them to the front garden! Caught a cheeky one munching on one the the tomato leaves and another one munching on a runner bean leaf. I spotted some flower buds forming so soon I will start feeding with the Tomorite.

The mixed bell pepper and cayenne chilli plants are all doing really well. They are all now in their final pots. The chilli plants measure around 11" & 14" and the 3 pepper plants measure 18", 17" and 16" tall. I ended up keeping 3 pepper plants as I couldn't decide out of them which 2 I preferred.
All 3 peppers have flowered, they will still be indoors until at least the end of may however so I do not think any peppers will start to grow just yet.

I have strawberries! the 3 strawberry plants I purchased from homebase flowered almost straight away and have developed into lots of varying sized strawberries. There not yet ripe, I keep checking them as I cannot wait to try one. I purchased some netting to put over some of the crops incase birds start to steal the food.

So far most of the fruit and vegetable growing is going well, other than a few set backs and the slight error, they all seem on their way to being healthy plants that will hopefully yield some nice crops.

In other gardening updates, I repotted my beautiful Salix tree as it was almost pot bound. Its now in a much larger container where it will hopefully remain for a few years. Both the olive and bay trees are doing well also, both are producing new buds and the olive has flowered. The olive tree grew back last summer to my delight after it died indoors trying to protect it from the harsh winter we had. This year i decided to keep it outside and thankfully the winter was very mild.

I currently have my large climbing rose in bloom, the mini bush rose has grown back significantly and I think I have a small bud starting to form on my small rescue rose (climber). The rescue rose however does struggle to produce fresh healthy leaves, it have grown on since last year with new growth yet its also started to slow down in one section. I am not too sure what the reason for this is, I thought it was leaf curl however it doesn't quite look the same as other incidents online. The leaf seems slightly stunted almost and shrivelled?