Seeds germinated

[busy_lizzie]

This is what I love about pumpkins and squash they give you such an early reward. On Tuesday I sowed, Queensland blues, my pumpkins from last year, butternut squash and my competition Mammoth, pumpkin.  Yesterday I looked in the airing cupboard and saw that most of them were straining against the cling film that I had put over the pots.  I now have 5 really chunky and vigourous looking Queensland Blue, 4 sturdy last years and two  stonking looking butternut squash.  They are little monsters. I only have two more butternuts and my Mammoth ones to come up.  I am supposing the Mammoth might take a bit longer with it being a whoppa.  But it's great news and a pleasure to see  -  they seem to have grown every time I look at them.  busy_lizzie

[artichoke]

I feel the same! Mine were chitted in the airing cupboard and have gone into gutters in a home-made shelter (bricks and rigid plastic) in the garden, and it is encouraging to see the seedling leaves tossing the compost aside in the sun.

I always run out of space on my allotment, and the success I am having with the chitting/gutter method this year is scary. I have a tall old apple tree on the allotment, and it came to me yesterday that I could try persuading some of the trailers to climb into it. I would lash stakes and bamboos into position leading from planting area in a wide circle around the tree up into the lower branches, and give them a bit of assistance.

Could look like a strange green maypole. The other thing I have done before is let a couple trail along the asparagus bed, helping to keep weeds down.

Any comments?

[Curryandchips]

Yes I have at least 4 hundredweight pumpkins germinated and looking healthy. Very poor progress on my cobnut squash though. 4 pumpkin plants will give me more pumpkins than I can eat though ...