October sowing the sweet peas

Clean surface

Using a cleaned and washed surface, a three to one mix of New Horizon multipurpose compost to sharp sand was mixed up to sow the Lathyrus odoratus into. The varieties sown were; Lipstick, Lizbeth, Honeymoon, Anniversary, Jilly, Nora Holman, Restormel, Gwendoline, Angela Ann, Eclipse, and Oban Bay. 

One seed was planted in each washed three inch pot. 

Labels were then written giving the genus, species and variety.

Writing the labels on top of a crate made it a little easier.  The labels were inserted in each of the pots.

 As it was raining I left the pots outside to be watered by the rain.

The pots were returned to the greenhouse after getting a thorough watering and lined up on the staging.  They will remain there until March next year. 

A new Rheum rhaponticum 'Timperley Early' was potted up so that it could be put into the allotment later.  It was a small plant which might benefit from growing on without competition.  I will plant it in the spring with mychorrhizal fungi and some inoculated charcoal.  

Rheum rhaponticum ''Timperley Early' in the large pot

Allium ascolonicum were planted in pots for the winter. I am not planting them outside at the moment to avoid the onion miner fly Phytomyza gymnostoma.

After writing it out quite a few times, I learnt that Lathyrus odoratus is the Latin name for sweet pea.  I still need to learn the species name of Rheum rhaponticum. 

Pencil is an adequate writing implement for labels.  It does not come off easily, which was witnessed yesterday when I had to resort to using silver soap to clean the writing off the plant labels.  

I need to get some more plant labels.