And After all that Excitement…

…I feel I should calm your nerves with an update on the vegetable growing situation. Yeah, I know, be still your beating heart. But it really is all go on the garden front, or at least the windowsill front:

(these pictures predate the french bean which has decided to come up upside down, seriously freaking out the other half. More on that as the story develops)

And I would be seriously remiss if I didn’t fill you in on interim results on my parsnips. Previously on TownMouse, last year’s parsnips did not come up at all, apart from one seedling which promptly disappeared. This year, I went for a belt and braces approach, both chitting and potting on some of my parsnips. I successfully raised twelve, which were planted out with great care and ceremony and coddled under bottle cloches through the spring frosts. I also planted out my curly wurly parsnips, and some that I’d just chitted in a spirit of experimentation to see which method brought the best results. And then, mostly for completeness’s sake, I planted some unchitted seed as well. More than a month later, the chitted-and-potted (and suited and booted) parsnips are doing quite well, although one has vanished:

The curly wurly parsnips are down to just two, but they’re the biggest of the lot:

(picture not to scale!)

And the chitted ones are coming up quite nicely, if patchily, as well:

As are, er, the unchitted ones:

So what does it all mean, apart from the fact that I have absolutely no idea how best to germinate my parsnips? I think I’ll have to wait and see what the yield is. Watch this space, there will be numbers.

Oh and I think I may owe an apology to my broccoli, which is sprouting everywhere now. Hurray! It’s helping the spreadsheet for last year’s season creep ever closer into profit.

And it’s pretty too…