Growing

Twelve seedlings in the morning so left on the windowsill for the day


In the evening, they're all straining towards the window to catch the light (on the left) so I turned the pot round...and realised there were now 13 !


Time for some more water - about 250ml using a measuring jug, carefully dribbled across the surface of the soil...with my trusty assistant watching on

Life !!

I dutifully brought in the pot from outside last night and put it back on the front windowsill for overnight. When I checked this morning at 8am before leaving for work, no sign of life, but by 6pm, to my huge excitement and relief, ten little seedlings have popped their noses out of the soil and are stretching for the sky !


Good thing too as at lunchtime I'd been second-guessing my selective planting strategy especially after some random googling had brought up phrases such as "sow a pinch" rather than the individual seed approach I'd taken.


A little gentle watering with a spray bottle followed by pouring a bit more on - trying not to drown them but also bearing in mind the need for a "reasonable supply of water"


Finally I feel worthy of the text blogger inserts with each photo "parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully" - now to keep them growing !

Day 3

Still nothing to see but at least the cats haven't dug it up. Here's what it looked like at 9am


and at 12:15pm I moved it so still in the sun on the windowsill


Since its another glorious sunny day (22C), at 2pm I moved it out into the back garden to get some full on sun for a few hours

Day 2

7am, not much to see.


I kept the pot on the windowsill so it would get sun all morning.


A hot hot sunny day up to 25C. I gave it a little drink at about 3:30pm - spray with a water bottle but then added a bit too - about a cup.

Then a quick check and a photo last thing at night...still nothing to see

Planting

Feeling a little nervous about how this project will go...no idea how to plant radishes so gone for a "give them lots of space" approach in hope each seed will come up but so they don't interfere too much with each other.

First things first, I read through the instruction book and looked at the pot, soil, seeds and bag. Figured that filling the pot would (if past experience is anything to go by) be a messy job so out into the back garden on a glorious sunny evening.

Water-logged soil can be a problem, particularly in plastic pots and since no holes in the bottom of the pot, reckoned I'd better add some gravel in case I (we!) over watered.


Then I added all the soil - and squished it down by hand till quite firm.


I wanted to make a little hole for each seed so I poked my finger in about a centimetre deep with about an inch between holes - hadn't really planned how many but ended up with 14 'homes' and popped a seed into each


A light covering of more soil over the top...


then after a quick check from the supervising cats, Tigger and Dibley


time for a gentle watering


back into the nice green bag for easy transport


and then I brought the pot back inside and put it onto the windowsill in the front room where it would catch the morning sun.