A Pea in a Pod

Yes, one pea in one pod appears to be the sum total of our produce from this Garden Pea plant.

Mind you, it is a lovely pod following on from the lovely flower we wrote about earlier.

Can't wait to devour it - half a pea each. How to tell when a pod is ready? Want to taste it at its best.

A Surprise Pea Flower

A very pleasant surprise this morning as a flower opened on the Garden Pea plant. 

We weren't expecting any yet, it's only a small plant, we haven't even put in any support for it yet, we can see a second bud too.

Having all these plants on a desk makes it very easy to get up close and see the beauty of these delicate flowers - easier to take good pictures too as it's so still :)

Crop Rotation System

We squeeze as many plant pots onto the windowsill as possible. They all have to have their fair share of the sunlight so we spend some time each day rotating plants between different parts of the desktop and window.

As mentioned earlier, the desk is in front of a large West-facing window with plenty of light but only some direct sunlight in late afternoon and evening. Some plants are happy out of direct sunlight but most really seem to benefit from a few hours of sunbathing whenever possible.

We've had to stick to pots that fit between the window and the secondary glazing. At the top of this picture you can see the Spinach, next is 1 Pea plant then a few Tomato plants which are now looking really strong.

Pea Plant Looks Promising

Our one and only Pea plant continues to grow well.

We have recently discovered the deliciousness of pea shoots which you can buy from the supermarket. So we are hoping for a double harvest of both Peas and Shoots.

Desktop Garden One Month Review

After nearly a month and over 20 blog posts since we started the Desktop Garden it may be worth a quick review of how it's going.

You can see that the desk is quite full, the Tomatoes and Pak Choi are looking quite strong on the windowsill though we sometimes bring them in if it's a very cold night.

We have added a wire shelf to raise up the plants at the back of the desk to get them out of the shade a bit more.

The Mint and Rosemary are thriving and regrow whenever we snip off a few leaves for the kitchen but the Thyme was not at all happy, not sure why, some plants just don't like being indoors. We're going to try growing some Thyme from seed. Only 1 of the Pea seeds has sprouted, that is going well but we fear that may be the only one from the pack to germinate.

The Peppers, Spinach and Japanese Basil are looking good too. The Rocket Salad seedlings are are looking quite weak but most have new leaves appearing from the centre. We're thinking that it may better to sow some seeds straight into the big pots or troughs and leave them rather than starting in modules and potting up. As we're not going to plant outside it may be better to avoid any unnecessary disturbance. 

One unforeseen problem we have discovered is that we can't go away! We have to check, water, talk to and move plants every day. We'll have to appoint some trustworthy green-fingered friend to look after things when we go on holiday.

It is also difficult keeping the room clean and tidy - compost and water gets everywhere. Need to be organised and disciplined - we are of course :)

Its been fun so far and we've already learnt a lot. We're happy with how it looks and have already been blessed with some lovely flowers and edible herbs. It's sad when things fail but but it's great to wake up in the morning to check for new arrivals pushing their little heads through the soil.

Desktop Garden Peas

We do like a challenge. If all 6 Garden Pea seeds grow to their full height we may have a problem.

These were on offer in the children's section at Ness as they were getting a bit old. The seeds and soil come together in a nice little pocket which you can colour in before you start (we skipped that bit) then add water and wait for germination. 

Then you pot them up into separate containers. 

It doesn't say what happens next, that's obviously where the parent has to take over responsibility. Oh dear!

On the left of this picture you can see a bit of the Cress which has grown splendidly, look out for a photo of that tomorrow.