Toms

At last, I've sown some tomatoes! It's a little late but I'm sure they'll catch up. I've also sown a few lettuce (red and green mixed) and three varieties of sweet pea that I found I had left over from last year. I don't know if they'll germinate, or indeed where I am going to put them if they do, but it felt like a good idea at the time!

Most of the seeds I've sown recently have started to come up - the butternut squash have been taking their time, and are just starting to show, but the rest have been pretty quick to germinate. I saw a good tip the other day - those free plastic shower caps that you get in hotel rooms fit nicely over a standard seed tray (or a group of pots) to make a DIY cloche/propagator! Worked a treat on my sweetcorn. Hotels around the country will suddenly find that their complimentary shower caps are actually being used! Any that I visit certainly will!

As an aside, on Easter Saturday I visited Oaktree Nurseries near Bracknell with my Brother-in-Law. I haven't visited many 'proper' nurseries, and it was a real eye-opener. It's a fantastic place, loads of plants and not just a handful of each varieties like your average garden centre, but huge swathes of plants in massive polytunnels/greenhouses that stretched over 25 acres! Everything from the tiniest bedding plants to huge mature trees. Definitely worth a visit if you're over that way and in the mood for plant shopping.