First tentative steps.....

.....into the wonderful world of veggie growing!

Our lovely next-door neighbour, Linda, very kindly gave us some of her excess seedlings.  As per usual, I completely forgot to take photos of the little plants before I potted them on LOL  As you can see through the grubby porch window, this was a few months back before we had got the first raised bed ~ or had even finished creating the borders for that matter.

Linda didn't say what variety the tomatoes are but those in the photo above are the cherry type... 

...and these are regular-size toms.


She also gave us lots of broccoli seedlings, far too many for me to make use of.  I transplanted some into these two rather large planters...



...that are twiddling their thumbs, waiting for me to make proper use of them.  I thought they would make a good enough temporary home until the raised bed was ready. 



I put some more, again temporarily, in this plug plant tray.  They were looking a tad spindly to be honest, but I thought it was worth giving them a chance.



As soon as the raised bed was ready, I moved them all out of their temporary homes.  Their stems were still a wee bit spindly so I planted them right up to the first pair of leaves.



They obviously like their new home, as they've romped away!  Unfortunately, butterflies have started to lay their eggs on the underside of some of the leaves so I've ordered some mesh and hoops to make a protective barrier.  Hopefully it will be here sometime this week ~ I'll have to remember to clear the eggs off all the leaves before I put it in place.



And here they are this morning ~ bigger than ever!  I'm hoping that I will actually get some broccoli florets, not just lots of leaves 😉

The tomatoes seemed happy to be re-potted.

I love the smell of tomatoes!

Adrian was going to do some temporary repairs in the porch, so I decided to put the toms out in the raised bed.  I'm not hopeful that they will do well out here, as I think they are probably greenhouse varieties.  Next year, I'm going to try sowing an outdoor variety to see if it does any good way up here.

Still, the plants are doing their best and have put out some flowers ~ and look, that's an actual tomato!  Whether we have enough summer to see any more fruit remains to be seen.  

nature's diamonds on the broccoli!

Whatever the outcome is I won't be disheartened as this is our first year as veggie growers.  And if Linda hadn't given me some of her extra plants then I don't suppose I would have got anything sown this year anyway.  I'm sure there will be plenty of trials and tribulations in the kitchen garden in the coming years, but hopefully there will be successes too 😊