One of the key stages of growing anything from seed is when you need to ‘prick out’ and ‘pot on’ so that a plant can continue its development on its own, and without competing for nutrients.

The downside of this of course, when your windowsills are already creaking under the weight of trays, pots, and propagators, is that you end up with far more pots to deal with. It’s times like this when I wish I had a greenhouse!

Armed with my trusty HB pencil, I headed to the shed with the first tray to be pricked out (hence the pencil) and potted on to it’s new upgraded home.

First to prick out was the Lettuce ‘OutREDgeous’ – the red lettuce that was grown in space. The leaves are currently green with no sign of their eventual colour, but perhaps this comes with age.

I have a whole seedtray of plug plant lettuces and a few spares now, which will be able to be planted out into the garden in the next few weeks as they’ll be fine with the colder weather once I’ve hardened them off.

Following this, the Antirrhinum ‘Chuckles’ seedlings were pricked out into their next stage pots – I’ve given them fairly generous square pots so that they can develop into sturdy plants.

I need to get more of these pots so that I can progress things like the Cosmos ‘Sensation Mixed’ and the Sage, and Sweet Sultan ‘Mixed’, otherwise I’m going to have a tangled mess on my hands.

The Aster ‘Starlight Mixed’ and the Cleome ‘Colour Fountain’ haven’t germinated well, with only 3 and 2 seedlings respectively making it through to this stage.

The Rudbeckia ‘Marmalade’ plants have grown very well once again, and were long overdue being potted on. I’m growing some for my mother in return for the Coleus ‘Canina’ plants that she bought for me to scare my neighbours cats away (probably, like last year’s Lion poo, won’t scare them at all). More on those another time!

The Rudbeckia should look fantastic when it flowers in a few months.

As ever, thanks a lot for reading, and I wish you a happy gardening time!

Andrew