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Right, so we’re going to have to ease into this blogging thing again, so let’s start with something easy.

Meet our plant!

Ok, so on first look it’s not that exciting. But for us it’s become a bit of a clock. When we inherited it from someone’s flat a few years ago we called it “the stick”.  It only had about 2 or 3 leaves, and looked pretty darn sad.  And it stayed that way for quite a few years. Over the last few, though, it’s gradually got more and more and more leaves and now looks pretty much like a real plant.

And this year there was a big surprise.  It flowered! A big, strange, collection of flower type things popped out the top, sat around for a while, and then fell off.  And then another one appeared!

The second one’s almost ready to fall off now by the look of it, and a new leaf has already appeared.

No idea what type of plant it is though. Must look out for one at a garden centre or somewhere to work that out…

I lied.

Boo hoo hoo.

I’ve never understood the giving of flowers. It just seems a bit pointless and mean to give someone something that just sits there and dies at you, dropping it’s leaves and stuff all over the place.

Now in a garden, that’s different. That’s where they belong. (Except roses. I’ve never really liked them much, except for the climbing ones. Scraggly looking plants that bite you are not my favourite things.)

But Bec seems to like them, as do most women I know, and occasionally wishes that I’d bring her some. Well, kind of. I think if I did buy her some now her first thought would be that I’d done something really, really, really bad!

Just as well some of her friends give her some now and then!

Any regular readers of this blog will have noticed the distinct lack of chilli entries this year. That’s because there really hasn’t been much to say! As I suspected, the plants don’t seem to have been getting enough sunlight to really have a go at producing too many chillies. That’s not to say there aren’t any on them. There are a few on most of the plants, but it’s taken a long time for them to get to any reasonable size.

But the first one to appear, long before the rest, came in handy the other day. I’d noticed it going yellow one day, and by the next it was almost completely yellow. Didn’t muck about!

And just as well. The next day we were making a recipe that called for 1 yellow chilli.

So we used it, and it was good!

One chilli plant decided that today was the day for the first of its flowers to open. None of the other plants are even looking like flowering yet, but this one’s had quite a few pre-flower buds for a few days.

We kept 6 plants in the end. And they’re all starting to get their own identities. One didn’t really grow much , but now has really big, round leaves compared to the others. One has a heap of little leaves on its stem, while the others don’t, etc., etc. Still no idea what types they are yet though!

And I’m still sure they’re not getting enough sun. They can’t really sit outside in the sun at the moment as it’s too windy, and they just bend all over the place. If we’re home and can babysit them on still days it’s OK, but I’m not really ready to take too much of a risk yet. Maybe when they’re older…

A warm, sunny, quiet Sunday last weekend, so it was good day to get the minor chore of re-potting the chillis into their final pots out of the way.  Some of them had already been upgraded to slightly larger intermediate pots already, and those ones had definitely outgrown the ones stuck in the small peat pots.

Now I just hope we can get them enough sun here to grow and fruit.  If I’m home I keep shuffling them across the balcony to catch as much sun as possible, but I’m not sure it’ll really be enough…

Some more of the remaining little ones are to go to good homes this week though.  I hope they’ll do well there so I can get a few chillis back to see which type they all turned out to be.

You knew it had to happen sometime.  Another chilli update.

Things seem to be moving along nicely now that they’ve been re-potted and we’ve had some hot, sunny, and most importantly, relatively wind free days.  I’ve been able to get the chillies out onto the balcony and keep moving them around to follow the strip of sun as it moves across.

Most of the plants have now got 6 leaves, although there are a few stragglers.  Still not sure what type any of them are, and I guess that we won’t know until they actually have some fruit on them.  Difficult to know which to keep and which to give away, and which to just “retire” at some point.  Five plants have already gone to (hopefully) good homes, and some more will have to go this week.  I just hope I get to try some of the results of those plants later to see if I made the right choice of plants to keep…

Wandering past the planter this morning on the way to get a cup of coffee I noticed something slightly green out of the corner of my eye. Had a closer look, and voilà!Some tiny plants had poked their heads up overnight. Well, I assume it was overnight, and they’ve had a few boxes sitting on top of them for the last few days so they’ve not been in plain sight, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t there yesterday.

13 out of 40 showing signs of life. A bit surprising really, as it’s been really, really, really cold here for the last few days, including two days with snow falling outside the window for a while (yes, I did finally get to see snow this year, even if it didn’t settle), and we still didn’t turn the heating on. Thought they might have sulked and refused to come out and play.

One of the things we’re most looking forward to when we finally move home and get ourselves sorted out is a big vegetable garden. Of course we could be putting out of our minds all the hard work of creating then maintaining the garden, but the thought of being able to grab nice fresh veges keeps us positive.

So far we’ve decided we want to grow at least the following veges:

• Aubergines
• Beans. But never broad beans. Yuck!
• Beetroot
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Capsicums
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celeriac
• Celery
• Chicory
• Chillies (of course!)
• Corn
• Courgette
• Cucumber
• Garlic
• Kale
• Kohlrabi
• Leeks
• Lettuce of various types
• Onions of various types
• Pak Choi
• Parsnip
• Peas
• Potato
• Pumpkin
• Radish
• Red Onions
• Rocket
• Shallots
• Spinach
• Spring Onions
• Squash
• Sweet Potato
• Tomatillos
• Tomatoes
• Turnips
• Watermelon

There’s no doubt a few that we’ve forgotten too.

A spreadsheet has been created to keep track of when to plant things, how long they take to grow etc. Now we just have to work out how much space all of that is going to take up! I suspect it’ll be quite a bit. And some of it might require a bit of help from a greenhouse etc, but I’m sure we’ll be able to find space for one of them too.

If we overdo it and end up with too much produce, I’m sure our friends and families will be happy to take some off our hands… They might have to pay us back by doing some weeding though.

Next list is plants for the herb garden, but I suspect that will be easy. Absolutely all of them, unless they won’t cope with the weather…

Just when you thought you were going to escape the constant chilli updates for a year, I decided to plant some after all. Well, I was convinced to, really, but it would have been a strange year without them.

I’m really not convinced we’ve got the sunlight needed since we moved, but I guess it’s worth giving them a go and see what happens. And there’ll be plenty of plants to give away to others so they can give me their updates too. Not that I’ll be able to tell them what they are actually growing. Most of this year’s seeds are from mixed seed packs, so it all could be a bit of an adventure. But they can be fun.

So, check back for the stunning commentary on this year’s crop. I’m sure you’re all waiting with baited breath!