Last year, for Valentine’s Day, Chris bought me a packet of heritage tomato seeds which I planted immediately.  I decided that this would be the start of a new tradition so this year, on Valentine’s Day, I planted some of the tomato seeds that came with my gardening magazine.  The varieties were Red Cherry, Red Pear and Tigrella.  I had also saved some seed from last year’s crop (Wladeck).  As they still had a little of the pulp dried on to the seeds (which would have inhibited them from germinating) I put them in water to soak for a couple of days.

That should remove all of the pulp and then they will be ready to sow.

I also thought that I would try sowing some parsnips indoors.

Parsnips are slow and difficult to germinate.  They also need a relatively long time to grow.  There is no point in sowing them in my heavy cold clay at the moment.  However, they also hate being transplanted.  I thought that I would try growing them in toilet rolls; with luck they won’t notice what has happened when I transfer them to the garden.  The variety is called ‘Hollow Crown’.  I put two or three seeds in each tube and will thin them out after they germinate to leave just one plant in each.  After I took this picture I covered the seeds with more compost.  The compost is left over from last years tomotoes as on Gardener’s Question Time yesterday Bob Flowerdew suggested that carrots grown in a poor compost are forced to send their roots vigorously down in search of nourishment ….. we shall see.

I left the parsnips and some cut and come again lettuce that I also planted in the conservatory.  The aubergines, tomatoes and basil I sealed in polythene bags and put in the airing cupboard.  I will have to keep a very close eye on these as they will need moving to a warm sunny windowseal as soon as they are through or else they will get terribly forced.

I bet you are wondering what Chris bought me for Valentine’s day this year aren’t you.  Chris doesn’t go for half measures so as well as flowers, a lovely meal out and someting else garden related that I haven’t photogrpahed yet he got me these.

Two lovely new garden trugs; what an old romantic!  Needless to say I was delighted with them and tomorrow will show you what use I put them to immediately.