Thanks to a few bugging comments and a kick up the arse from Smithyveg i have got back to my blog. The last few weeks has been hectic, i've been taking orders for hanging baskets, i been to see a piece of ground which i'm looking into to be a small market garden and i've been busy in the garden here at 'Duck Pools' and creating a blog about that!
Well, as you can imagine, things have really moved on since my last post. The last post was when i was creating the shallot bed, now the shallots are almost ready to be thinned down to four per plant!
I decided earlier this year to cut down for a year on what i grow for show so i have sold alot of leeks and onions to fellow growers and have only planted about a dozen blanch leeks in the tunnel which is a 1/3 of the amount i grew last year. Instead of 40 potato polypots i am only doing 7 this year and they are all 'Sherine' the best white potato you can grow (in my opinion). I'm not bothering with pot leeks at all this year and i question whether i will ever grow them again the near future.
However, the things i am growing are doing reasonably well. The parsnips have all been thinned down to one per station today and i have kept the plastic cloches on them as a few night frosts have been forecast this weekend. The long carrots have, similarly, been thinned down but one barrel out of the four seems to be well ahead of the others!!!
The new celery bed has been walloped with muck, soot and peat which has created a beautiful crumbly dark growing medium. The celry 'Redstar' is growing nicely, i dont want them too big yet as they can soon spoil and are only in top condition for a week or two at the most before they start to deteriorate in quality.
Today i have planted my 8oz onions out on the allotment. The only preparation that they were given was an application of fish blood and bone. I didn't water them in as i expect the rain will continue for a little longer yet as bank holiday approaches!
Unfortunately, i haven't taken any recent photos of all thats been going on but as soon as i go down next week i shall take some progress pics and shove them on here for all to see.
I'm now going to go and read through some schedul an try to decide which shows i'm going to cut out and which ones i'm going to exhibit at???

Shallot bed...

Seeing as i'm only growing a few shallots this year for exhibition i have set up this little raised bed. Its on the cards that i may actually make it another board high. My shallots are the only one worth growing for show - Hative Di Niort- which friends of mine kindly sent me when they heard my mum had cooked my stored sets!

Also dug out the trench for my polypots that are to house my show potatoes grown in peat, vitax q4 and calcified seaweed.

I started to chit my parsnip seed last tueday and only a few have started to chit-so i'm hoping the others hurry up and start to chit too!. In readiness for sowing the chitted seed i have placed a plastic beaker over each station just to keep the moisture in and to warm the compost somewhat.

...as with the long carrot barrels. These i have covered with some pieces of polythene from the old tunnel covering. Having secured these with those bungee cords you can get from the cheapo shops.

This week i've sown quite a few bedding plants and climbers. A few veggies have been sown aswell. Next friday we're off to the edible garden show at Stoneleigh Park so hopefully i will have some photos from there to put on...

I core believe it..............

How do folks. Decided i'd prepare my boreholes ready for the parsnips this week. I'm only doing four barrels this year and i'll slowly add more each year until i've got about a dozen. I had made a very complicated piece of equipment which i have now had copyrighted and is coming to a department store near you! Its my new fangle-ultimate-blue-super-duper-holey-thingymebob- for all those of you desperate to see how talented i am i have taken a photo so you can see such brilliant engineering:

Anybody interested in such a gadget they are now retailing at £14.95 RRP £55.95.
As it happened, the day i chose to do the parsnip barrels, it was red hot and coring each station i was sweating my cobs off! They're done now anyway and ready for the chitted seed.
     Most of the blanch leeks have been taken out from under the growlights and are on a well-lit bench in the heated greenhouse.

These are due for a bigger pot which i shall do next week on my days off. As for the pot leeks, these are romping away in a 2ltr pot again, these will probably go up to a 4 or 5ltr pot next week. They are still under the lights as you can see from the photo below. Take note that i am spraying all the leeks and onions with a weak solution of Dynamec for the control of thrip.

Credit to David Metcalfe- his strain of onion is a growing away nice and strong. In fact they are that strong they hardly require their supporting wires. I've moved them up from 12 cells to 4" square pots and kept them under 12hr daylight.

All xanths are now potted up and set out on the bench. As usual i'm incorporating rockdust into the compost mix as i've found this does make a difference in the final plants when it comes to planting out time.

Last but not least, my first batch of celery has germinated well and i intend to prick out next week (gonna be a busy week next week!) By doing two sowings i'm hoping to get a good set for Shrewsbury show and any others i can use for local shows and they always come in handy for collections being one of the 20 point veggies.

Well...another week gone and March less than a week away! It seems the older you get the quicker time goes- in which case Simon Smith's (smithyveg) time must be speeding along!!! -Love ya Si!

Pot Luck...

Finished the preparation of the new pot leek beds yesterday...

...5L pots inserted into the bed where each leek will be planted

A good scattering of slug pellets before the ploythene goes on...

Black underneath to keep down weeds and retain moisture and warmth. White on top to reflect light back onto the plants...

Then finally...cut out a hole where each 5L pot is. All i do then is when it comes to planting out, remove the empty 5L pot and replace it with the pot leek. Hey presto...a pot leek bed!

I've gotta sand it to ya!

Had two tonne of sharp sand arive this week for my long carrot setup which meant an early start up the allotments. The company said between 7-9am so i got there at 645am, still dark i might add. I lit the fire and had a warm for a bit before doing a few odd jobs whilst i waited. What time did it arrive...yep..9am! Could have had another bloody hour in bed! Anyhow the sand has been shifted and the long carrot setup is...setup! The usual blue barrels ar placed on top of a raised bed of sand and the barrels themselves are filled with sand. This is how it looks at the moment:-

Had some sand left over so i emptied and refilled the parsnip barrels, topping them up as required.

Whilst on the subject of root crops, ive nearly moved all the stump carrot barrels over to my other plot. Theres only two left to move and refill. - I should add that every time i refill my barrels i thoroughly disinfect the sand every few layers. Im moving them so they are inside mynew netted enclosure to giv them protection from the wind more than anything.

Ive reglazed the polycarbonate greenhouse again after the winter gales blew them all but a few out. With more 'W' clips used, im pretty sure that those poly sheets are firmly secured and arent going anywhere. Behind the polyhouse my two ne raised beds have had their final preparations and all thats left to do is to put black/white polythene down but theres plenty of time for this.

Heres a shot taken of the inside of the polyhouse. All that i'll grow in here is onions. The 20ltr pots are for peter glazebrooks strain which are coming along nicely and in front of these 20ltr pots i shall plant straight into the bed with some of V throups and David Metcalfes.

The pot leeks have been potted on in 2ltr pots nowa but i havent had chance to take a photo. Most of the blanch leeks have ben removed from under the growlights aswell. Thats all for now...roll on spring!

That's Shallot...

It arrived this morning! A package addressed to Mr Adam Greathead. I knew what it was and i was strangely excited by its arrival- in it was a packet of Jim Thompsons french bean seed and 18 shallots- the strain that won at Malvern last year. This package that made me feel as though christmas had come early had been sent by a very kind couple (Denise and Ray Ingram). They had heard about my misfortune concerning my crop of hative di niort which had fell into mums hands and then onto the plate! Thank you soooooo much Ray and Den- i owe you! So today i potted them up into M3 + perlite and put them into the cool part of the greenhouse.

Went out this morning to fetch some essential supplies: peat and dolomite lime. These two things completed my list of sundries that were required for my onion mix. A bit of peat and good quality sterilized loam; dried blood; calcified seaweed; viresco; osmocote and others have all gone into the mix this afternoon. Now its all bagged up ready for when i need it. I shall use this mix to fill my 20ltr pots into which i shall plant my onions.

I'm trying to get all these jobs out of the way whilst the ground is frozen and theres little else to do. The next BIG job is sieving the peat for the spud bags. I need about 700ltrs of peat so alot of sieving!

Some prick just blocked me in!