And so the growing year starts again!

Happy New Year, Merry Yule / xmas n all that jazz, and now we've got the festive season done with, the time comes again to start planting for the coming growing season!

Today Ive been planting the early chillies, peppers, aubergines and tomatoes, plus some onion seeds, into the propogatirs which are now sitting on the bedroom windowsills, cant wait for the seeds to germinate, feels like the new growing year has started today! Lol!

Chillies Planted
2 dorset naga,
3 hungarian black,
2 choc habanero,
2 scotch bonnet,
4 orzoco,
8 hot jalapeno,
8 tokyo hot,
8 decayenne,
8 cayenne
8 hot stuff
8 Naga Jolokia

Total of 67 chilli seeds planted, with another batch of other varieties to be planted in late Feb!

Peppers Planted
14 worldbeater peppers
8 Granny Smith peppers,
8 Tasty Bell peppers
8 Padron peppers
8 Sweet Ingrid peppers,
8 Corno Rosso peppers
8 Jumbo peppers

Total 62 pepper seeds planted so far, with another batch of other varieties to be planted in late Feb!

Aubergines planted
6 Chinese Ancestors
6 Black Beauty
6 Black Enorma
6 Moneymaker
6 Viserba

A total of 30 aubergine seeds planted, lets hope they do better than last years (only 3 survived)

Tomatoes Planted
8 Balconi Red (hanging basket)
8 Ildi
8 Red Tumbling Toms (hanging basket)
8 Gardeners Delight

32 tomato seeds planted, 16 of which are for hanging baskets both at home and on the plot (should look good hanging from the new grapevine arbour!)

Plus  I've also sown 3 trays of onions from seed, Bedforedshire Champion, Ailsa Craig and Hytech, Im determined to do much better with onions from seed this year, its one of those things I really want to get to grips with, rather than relying on the onions from set (which usually run out about now!)

So, the balance sheet for the coming year now starts again!

Costs
£59.50 for seeds (Wyevales sale),
£7 for onion sets (3 varieties, 200+ sets in total),
£12 for dual plum tree,
£10 for 3 x 70L bags of compost (for planting seeds in)
So a total spend for 2011 of £98.50 so far, with Seed spuds, rent and subs to pay for definite (approx £100), plus any other projects we wish to undertake on the plots, so hopefully this year will be a cheaper year on the allotments than the last few!

We are on holidays in about 10 days time, so hopefully we will be able o get to the plot and get the winter clearing up done ready for the crops to go in when the weather properly improves!

Hope your planting plans are sorted, your first sowings are in the propogators and your growing year is off to a good start!