Seedlings

Our first batch of seedlings for 2008 is doing really well, having germinated successfully - and pretty quickly - in the heated propagators. They've been potted in a mixture of potting compost and perlite in the usual random assortment of pots, accumulated over the years or recycled. They're now in cut-down cardboard boxes in preparation for our move north in about a week's time. I dare say I'll end up with them on my lap for the trip from Cambridge to Newcastle (Staffordshire).

We ordered the seeds this year from Simpson's Seeds, who offer a bewildering array of seeds for sale via their website. The first to get going are tomatoes, chillies and aubergines. The varieties we've chosen to grow this year are the cordon tomatoes Bloody Butcher (great name!) and Rudolph (I'm guessing a nose reference there - it's the one pictured below) and bush tomatoes Golden Pearl & Maskotka. We've had great success with bush and tumbler tomatoes in the past. As we'll have a proper greenhouse to use soon for the very first time, we're expecting good things from the larger tomatoes too.

Chillies are wonderful things to grow. If you get a surplus of them, they are great preserved as a chili & mustard pickle. We use Madhur Jaffrey's recipe for this - usually in the autumn. This year we went for hot jalapenos with that in mind, as well as the 'holy trinity' of Mexican mole - ancho (poblano); mulato isleno; & pasilla bajio - a dish we're very keen to have a go at making.

The aubergine we decided to try growing is Calliope, an Indian style aubergine with striped skin. When we lived in East London, we used to make some delicious Indian-style dishes with little aubergines bought from the wonderful grocers nearby. It'll be nice to grow our own!

We're going to have plenty of projects on the go once we've moved, including the garden. We've almost finished the lovely kale from our current very small plot and we'll try to move the purple sprouting broccoli that isn't ready yet. Moving from planting up one small bit of a rented garden to planning a whole garden is a challenge we're really looking forward to.