Smy Indoor Garden - Week Two 18/02/11

Here is Smy indoor garden at week two. Not too much happening besides the rhubarb going totally crazy with two new shoots. I must ring Auntie Chrissie as I'm torn over whether or not to "force" them or not. They seem so keen and I would feel cruel sticking a bucket on their heads at this point. I also need to know if it is a good idea or not to buy two more plants from Columbia Road Flower Market and put the three of them in one large container. I know that they will create a lot of leaves and grow somewhat tall. Auntie Chrissie will know what to do but if anyone else has any advice I would love to hear from them.

Also doing well is the blueberry bush with lots of new shoots forming.

I had started two seed trays last week, one of herbs and tomatoes and one of rocket, chillies, chives and strawberries, as seen above. I put a heavy handed dusting of compost on top of the herbs and tomatoes and was concerned that it would be a bit too much for the delicate seeds to handle so I have actually started those afresh. The rocket above is properly going for it and thanks to Kay Sexton for pointing out that is why they call it rocket...I had never thought of that before! But that got me thinking, which came first shooting rockets or edible rocket. Presumably rocket was around first but I was wondering if the etymology was related to fireworks or China. I went over to the Online Etymology Dictionary to see what I could find out:

The first entry for rocket is:

"garden plant of the cabbage family," 1520s, from M.Fr. roquette, from It. rochetta, dim. of ruca "a kind of cabbage," from L. eruca "colewort," perhaps lit. "hairy caterpillar" (the plant has downy stems) and related to ericus "hedgehog," also "a beam set with spikes."

The second entry for rocket is:

"projectile," 1610s, from It. rocchetto "a rocket," lit. "a bobbin," dim. of rocca "a distaff," so called because of cylindrical shape.

I was quite interested to find out that the etymology of both words is Italian and that projectile rockets came not long after edible rocket.

My three gooseberry bushes, as seen above, are now planted and seem to be getting on well. Two of them are year one plants while the third is a year two plant and may fruit this year while the other two will not. Over the past week, the elder gooseberry has been producing some lovely little shoots. Hopefully there will be rhubarb and gooseberry crumble later this year!

Last but not least I wanted to share a picture of some garlic chive seeds that I am sowing which were a generous gift from Kay Sexton, author of Minding My Peas and Cucumbers: Quirky Tales of Allotment Life (which will be published in March). I sowed them today and they are much stockier than the other chive seeds that I am sowing, am excited to compare and contrast the two and am very thankful, thanks Kay! Kay also has an informative and funny blog, Writing Nueroses that you should check out.

Be sure to check back for week three as I'll be going to Columbia Road Flower Market for more herbs, advice and what have you.

and remember...
it's not your chutney...
it's Smy Chutney.