A weakness for carrots.

Yesterday I had a brilliantly busy day out on the roof. I got down to some serious seed sowing.

I had to give myself a little pat on the back as I managed to resist sowing the usual million lettuce seeds and stuck to a modest 20 or so. I also finally pulled up last year’s rocket, but I did cut the flowers as they are so beautiful.

I bought the lettuce, rocket and the stunning ‘Bonita Fiesta’ marigolds that I also sowed yesterday, from a supermarket in France last year and they are brilliant. You get loads of seeds in a packet, and the lettuces are huge. 

I think I have hinted before at my weakness for growing carrots. I’ll just say it now; I love it.

I did give in this week and bought yet more varieties on line. 

I’ve always grown carrots in pots, even when I had real earth. It’s so much easier, and you don’t lose any to pests.This year I’m sticking to four types: ‘Amsterdam Forcing’, ‘Rainbow’ carrots (which I love – they are purple, yellow, white and orange). These two I’ll put in tall pots like what you get roses in. The other two are ‘Atlas’ and ‘Parmex’ which are smaller, round varieties. 

As I don’t need the ‘Parmex’ carrots to be very big – I mainly use them in salads – I’ve sown them into this plastic pot tray that they give away in places like Homebase. I did cut a couple of holes in the bottom and mixed in some vermiculite into the compost. These trays are also great for growing lettuce in.

Getting slightly over-excited going through my seeds, I decided to sow some pumpkins. I’m not sure this was a good Idea for the roof, especially as they are called ‘Hooligan’, but they do say they are mini ones, I’m not even sure where this packet came from, so I’ll take it as  sign that they found me. I think that I’m going to try trailing some along the tops of the railings. 

This week , my good friend Lucy came up bearing amazing pea gifts (above) from the National Trust garden that she works at in Devon. I have a sweet pea ‘Matucana’ which is one of the original sweet pea variety, grown by Sicilian monks (very exciting), two edible peas; ‘Carouby De Maussane’ from 19th century France and ‘Magart’ which originates from Uppsala in Sweden. These, along with my own, will all become part of my pea fence that I’m going to have along one length of the roof. Before I start, I would like to replace the soil in the pallet planters to ensure that they have the best conditions to start their life here. However the look of confusion and horror on Rich’s face as he felt the weight of all compost he lugged up the steps last year, has made me think that I may just buy a small box of blood, fish and bone fertilizer instead.

Happy gardening.