Fans of Vicomte Raoul de Chagny

"When did someone last change your mind?": an interesting question on this week's Radio 4 "Any Questions", that initially stumped all the panellists (according to the presenter's observations!), and which of course they all then proceeded to dodge/spin into political dogma -- with the exception of the Conservative peer, who thereby gained some respect in my eyes. ( Read more... )

I now have two chillies definitely germinated and several more showing their necks; I did put quite a bit of seed in just in case, since I had plenty this year. The 'good' towel-tomatoes are germinating also, which feels very quick -- but in fact it has been a good ten days, apparently.

The Roma seedlings are not looking at all happy, and the towel-tomatoes, while much better developed, are starting to roll their seed-leaves a bit at the edges. I suspect both really want re-potting from their undrained containers into fresh compost (or at least *different* compost...), but it has been too cold to put them out at night and on some of the days, and I don't have space for multiple larger pots on the windowsill. I was intending to repot them when the true leaves had developed, but I think it may need to be done sooner. Although the new seedlings do at least demonstrate that the Roma seedlings actually have grown quite a bit since they started!

We have lots of tiny pink Linaria seedlings. Also possibly chives -- it looks for all the world like some sort of little stars of bog-grass or young moss growing in the pot, but as there isn't normally any grass up here the odds are probably reasonable that it might be the chives that I did after all sow in there. There is a good chance that it is moss, though -- really doesn't look like newly-germinated seedlings to me :-(
A Swan River daisy has germinated. Sowed marigolds and (optimistically) basil, in a very small pot that can be squeezed into the mini-greenhouse alongside the peas.

I repotted the thyme by the brute-force method of ripping the disintegrating plastic pot off it into pieces, then pulling off a lot of the rootball so that I could fit some compost in around it -- this is in fact the 'old' thyme that I thought was dying several years ago and that was supposed to be replaced by the acquisition of a new seedling. The two plants are now approximately the same size! The stump of the 'old' kale that was supposed to be being replaced by its seedling offspring is still producing leaves and looking about as healthy as they are, too...

The sorrel probably wants repotting yet again, but I confined myself to pulling off the mass of roots that have come out of the bottom of the pot. I think that what happened was that it grew roots downwards (where there was very little new soils for it) rather than sideways as I had hoped -- unsurprising, really, but I don't really want to sacrifice one of my deep tomato-pots for its benefit. The winter purslane has rotted away entirely, and I don't think it managed to set any seeds :-(

I had an entertaining episode yesterday when I was helping a lady with her Spanish homework (Level A2) despite never having learnt a word of Spanish; apparently a knowledge of French, English, a smattering of Italian, and an acquaintance with Hornblower and the Peninsular War are enough to get you a long way :-D
What I don't have, of course, is any knowledge of the grammatical structures, but since I know grammar *in theory* it was easy enough to identify what the questions in the course book were designed to test (e.g. masculine/feminine/plural endings)...

Interestingly, the Spanish word for 'oil' looks as if it ought to mean 'vinegar': aceite

Planted up another square of towel-tomatoes, since I have just emptied another windowsill-wide mini-margarine tub... this time using the 'good' seed, i.e. from the fruits that had lots of seeds in them rather than saved across lots of fruits that didn't have many, and labelled as "Towel (good)" accordingly.
After 15 days I already have a ridiculously large number of tomato seedlings in the other two tubs, unfortunately; I think I may have got 100% germination this year!