For what it's worth and to avoid the hassle of sowing seed, it's probably easier to buy for 45p or so, those pots of parsley you often find in supermarkets. Far far cheaper than most garden centre offerings. They are often a bit floppy but if you cut them back by a third and repot into a decent compost or even plant them in open ground they soon produce fresh growth. Otherwise parsley from seed can take an age and a half to germinate.

However for dill and basil, both are very easy to grow from seed yourself if you can find seeds nowadays. Thyme is easy from cuttings once you have a decent plant but you must keep it well trimmed so it produces fresh leaves. 

  I planted some supermarket parsley in my border a few years ago and it self-sets every year, so we have parsley almost all year round.  I’ve given my thyme and sage a good haircut as they were getting a bit woody.  I don’t have much success with basil though and I’ve never tried growing dill.  

I had a go with fenugreek (methi) in a trough last year and dried the leaves for curries.  But I didn’t harvest all the seeds, so I have a feeling I might get some coming up this year.

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I find it frustrating with that as soon as it gets warm enough for things to grow it becomes very dry and therefore everything needs watering. Means the lawn never has any time to recover. Not every year but the majority of the last few years there has been extended dry spells in April and/or May .
Trying to improve my lawn is therefore a difficult task. 

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Maybe a bit early but my courgette plants were taking over the windowsill so I planted two of them out yesterday. Hopefully we won't see a repeat of the frosts we had at the start of the week but I'll be keeping an eye on the forecast and get some fleece over them if it looks like turning cold again.

I've also got tomatoes and butternut squash seedlings in pots inside, and carrots, lettuce and peas sown in the raised beds. It's nice having enough time at home to do all this stuff!

 

I started growing tomatoes and peppers inside in Feb. I've recently moved half the tomato plants out to the greenhouse and will move the others out there in the next few days. The peppers will remain indoors until May.

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Well the problem with the courgettes hasn't been the cold but the wind. It's been ridiculously windy the last couple of days with the result that every larger leaf on the two courgette plants I put out has snapped at the stem. They still seem to be growing vigorously from the centre of the plant so hopefully when the wind dies off they will still be OK. I have them inside plastic slug collars to gives them some protection but probably makes the wind problem worse as they have a hard edge to snap against. I did my best to pad the inside of the collar with bubble wrap but the stems are still snapping. Maybe it will spur the plants on to grow sturdier stems on the new leaves If I do lose these, at least I still have some on the windowsill.

I also cleared a new bed next to the patio and have moved several baby strawberry plants from various spots around the garden, which have spread into unsuitable places by runners. They all seem to have taken root quickly and are growing very well, even the ones that my 2-year-old son has trodden/sat on! They are pretty tough plants. Looks like there are some flower buds already. Hopefully I will have a nice strawberry patch within easy picking distance of the garden chairs!

More success - I thought I had managed to kill our mint, which is meant to be impossible to kill but I have managed it before. It was in a pot sunk into the old veg patch, and I left it out for too long before moving it into the new one. It hadn't done anything and when I lifted it, the rootball was all mouldy so I had to bin it. Fortunately while digging through the veg patch I noticed some familiar looking leaves, which on further investigation were the tip of an extremely long mint shoot that had made its way to the sunlight from a broken-off piece of root buried about a foot down in the ground! I lifted it up, coiled it round in a new pot and sank that into a corner of the veg patch and it seems to be thriving again.

 

Less successful: the tomato seedlings which came up well a couple of weeks ago seem to have just stalled. They are not wilting, or drying up or dying, they have just.... stopped at the stage where the first true leaves are coming through. Very odd.

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The garden is awash with verdant growth; the early spring flowers have gone- celandines, pulmonaria, wood anemones, oxlips, cowslips have gone over; but violets, alkanet, ramsons, red campion, dusky cranesbill, bluebells all thriving; first roses blooming.

On the fruit front the redcurrants are plump but still green; rhubarb in second crop; tayberry and raspberry flowers have had bee visits; blackcurrants and plums have set and the cox apple has produced blossom again, though not much. Yesterday's heavy rain stripped the final male flowers from the walnut tree so I\ hope they had time to release pollen enough for the few other trees in the area.

One good fig.

Garlic and early potatoes doing well (both a foot high) and onion sets, radishes, rocket, salad, caulis all looking fine. Runner and French beans and tomatoes just getting going and waiting for chillies and cucumbers to germinate. Nver spent so much time in my garden as this April.

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Didn't know this thread existed..

*Aubergine is budding
*Tomatoes are flowering
*Chillies are mixed but best is budding
*Cucumber flowering
*First early potatoes are budding
*Lettuce i've been eating
*Beets are swelling
*Strawberries have begun to set
*Raspberry a week or so off flowering
*Basil & other herbs thriving.
*Peas & mangetout getting tall.

Didn't know this thread existed..

Come on, Pictures! It's old- older than my membership.

 

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Come on, Pictures! It's old- older than my membership.

 

 

shows how much attention i've been paying lol 

 

 

shows how much attention i've been paying lol 

Hee hee! Love your crop range though. Sounds a bit like you've been doing what we've been doing. If it grew in yer own dirt, it ain't got Covid!

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Didn't know this thread existed..

*Aubergine is budding
*Tomatoes are flowering
*Chillies are mixed but best is budding
*Cucumber flowering
*First early potatoes are budding
*Lettuce i've been eating
*Beets are swelling
*Strawberries have begun to set
*Raspberry a week or so off flowering
*Basil & other herbs thriving.
*Peas & mangetout getting tall.

You must have an amazing heated greenhouse or poly tunnel.

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You must have an amazing heated greenhouse or poly tunnel.

I thought that, although the beets might have overwintered. Our salad is good for eating and raspberries are flowering, and they were outdoors. But aubergines won't have come on outdoors. 

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You must have an amazing heated greenhouse or poly tunnel.

Neither. Just an unheated cold frame 🙂 well 2 cold frames lol. The strawberries grow outside in pots year in year out. I just leave them to it. 

Also the potatoes, raspberries, lettuce & beets are outside.

 

I thought that, although the beets might have overwintered. Our salad is good for eating and raspberries are flowering, and they were outdoors. But aubergines won't have come on outdoors. 

No just bought the seedling back in march and planted in pots. P.s. today i spotted a few flowers on my raspberry :)

Strawberries setting already? Very different at the other end of Hampshire. A few flowers but no sign of fruit.

The pear tree had blossom but no sign of any fruit though I haven’t looked very hard as it’s a bit inaccessible. Peas have only just sprouted and are an inch high. Potatoes are sprouting, lettuce and carrots are growing and need thinning out. Courgettes running rampant inside but getting destroyed by the wind of I put them out. Chillis have the first two leaves on the bathroom windowsill. And the toms which I though had stalled have sprung into life after repotting the seedlings. They need to get growing now though.

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I was thinking that I'd been late with sowing seedlings - they're still in the conservatory, quite small - but given next week's forecast, this could be a blessing in disguise.

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No plants or seeds this season due to lockdown. Hope this changes soon.

Plants growing are wild strawberries, in flower. Mint - Curly leaf parsley - Rosemary. 

Indoors Basil and more mint. 

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No plants or seeds this season due to lockdown. Hope this changes soon.

Plants growing are wild strawberries, in flower. Mint - Curly leaf parsley - Rosemary. 

Indoors Basil and more mint. 

You can get seeds delivered, Art, and even living veg plants /(although the latter are pricey). I feel sad that you can't do one of the things you love.

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All eyes on the forecasts for frosts!  Tomatoes potted on and looking strong, bush and cordons on veranda windowsill but tumblers potted into a hanging basket outside.  Runner and dwarf French beans looking very strong growing up a south facing fence but now have a makeshift shelter for frost protection.  Just as well as it’s currently -0.5c here!  

I only have one courgette plant, which isn’t doing too well generally and I forgot to frost protect it last night but it looks like it escaped frost damage.  Chilies have four pairs of leaves and will remain on the utility room windowsill for a while yet.  Cut and come again salad in two troughs are doing OK but will be a while before eating.  Peas were sown three days ago in containers on the veranda, they’ll be eaten as salad pea shoots. 

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Double the protection for those French beans, Caz. In the past I've had a whole crop destroyed despite overnight coverings and had needed to re-sow . 

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Ne'er cast a clout tlll May be out... 

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