Greenfingers, wah wah wahhhh

She's the (wo)man, the man with the Green touch etc etc. Yes, it's true. This summer I actually grew things from seeds and I'm quite impressed with myself about it. It's the first time I'd tried to grow my own vegetables and while they weren't exactly prize winners, they were edible. Which is all that counts :D

I've always wanted to try growing vegetables but I have a bad track record with house plants and no garden. I found a book at the library about growing vegetables in pots so decided that would suit us as we've got a small yard at the back of the house. I went to Homebase and bought a couple of planters, seeds and some soil.


I chose carrots and lettuce to start with.

I put some soil in the planters, added the seeds as instructed and watered them. I think I made a mistake in not putting enough soil in the carrot planter and worried they wouldn't grow.

I watered them every day and pretty soon they looked like this:

Hurrah, real live growing things! The lettuce was great and we ate it in salads or sandwiches. It'd grown quite quickly which pleased me as I'm quite impatient. I'm not sure if it would've grown bigger but it was tasty as it was. The carrots took longer and I ended up picking them before they were fully grown as it was starting to get really cold and I worried something terrible might happen if they got caught out in the frost. My gardening knowledge is limited so I'm not sure what the terrible thing would be, haha.

The carrots were tiny but they tasted really carroty. I was pleased just to have grown something successfully from seeds. I've got big plans for next year. I'm going to start planting earlier in the year and have bigger planters. Any tips are appreciated :)



CHALLENGE UPDATE:

I managed to go the whole of October without buying anything new. Spookily a week or so after my post about needing an umbrella I won one in a Facebook giveaway, which was very handy. The challenge to not buy anything new was easier than I thought. I bought a few second hand books from charity shops. My walking boots wore a hole in them but I acquired a pair off my Dad that he no longer uses. The hardest thing was that I needed a new winter coat and it was getting colder and colder as the month went on. I looked around loads of charity shops to try find one and scoured eBay for a used one but no luck. I bought a new one on November 1st instead and really enjoyed it's warmth. The truth of it is that I don't often buy new things already so it didn't take much adjustment.

I think I could generally go without buying anything new but buying things second hand takes a lot more effort with looking around to try find what you need. I was relieved when November came round to just go online and buy what I wanted quickly and easily. I'm going to continue to try buy most things I need second hand or from the market instead of buying things online though as I want to support local sellers rather than huge companies.