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???