Mini Growbox Test

I needed somewhere warm and bright to get my chillies started off and to keep them healthy until they're ready to go outside, so I built this box out of scraps I found around the house. There are 2 jalapeño seeds in each of those 4 'empty' pots. I'll let them all grow a bit, then kill off the weaker ones. I read that that's a good way to make sure you only end up with strong, healthy plants, so I thought I'd see how well it works. That tall, thin plant is a radish that I put in there as a sort of test subject. I have radishes in other places too (the garden, the kitchen windowsill, an artificially lit propagator etc.), and I compare them...

Read more »

And so it begins

I decided to buy a few seeds and other things from a local shop while I waited for my chilli seeds to be delivered. I bought some cucumber, dwarf tomato and radish seeds, a cheap little propagator, some cheap compost and some miracle-gro compost (to mix with the cheap stuff to give it a little boost). The propagator has 24 cells, so I decided to use half of it for those seeds and save the other half for my first batch of chillies. I made an oopsie though. After I filled up the 12 cells, I went to put the propagator on my bed while I sorted out a warm place to keep it, and I dropped it, covering my bed in compost and mixing up all of the seeds :( I picked out all of the seeds that I could find, replanted them and whatnot, but I must have missed a few as some of the cells now have multiple...

Read more »

Buying my first seeds

I'll be buying my seeds from Amazon, as they're a trusted website with a great review system to let me know which seeds are worth buying. This is the first set of seeds I'm going to buy: This seed set includes 15 Jalapeño seeds, 15 Hungarian Hot Wax seeds, 15 Habanero seeds and 15 Ring O Fire. This is a great set to start off with as it has the Jalapeño peppers that I love, with some interesting new peppers for me to try. It's also apparently fairly easy to grow in the UK under the right conditions. I'm also considering buying Bhut Jolokia seeds, just to see if me and my family and friends can handle the chilli that once held the title...

Read more »