It has been a boring day in more ways than one I spent half of it at a wedding fair with er in doors as she is a wedding planner. I did manage to escape at around 2 and started coring and boring the Carrot beds and drums.I need to sow some seeds this week for my early shows as Sweet Candle take 22 weeks from sowing to showing, my first show being on 13th August.I have now done half the new stump bed and will do the rest tomorrow. one thing I did learn was that the surface of the sand needs to be damp ti stop it falling in to the newly cored hole.I used 2& 3/4" pipe and moved it around in the hole to give me 3" this was then filled with the mix which is as follows
4 parts sieved compost
1 part sieved bagged topsoil
1 part fine Vermiculite
1 part silver sand
to every 20 litres I added
2 oz tev 4
1 oz garden lime
1 oz seaweed meal
1 oz ground calcified seaweed
the whole lot was mixed in the mixer for half an hour to ensure proper mixing.
How critical is the 22 weeks? I asak because I was going to sow my Sweet Candle this week for my show on 24/9.
ReplyDeleteRichard the 22 weeks came from Ian Simpson this is the length of time it takes for the Carrot to form the stump end and be ready for showing
ReplyDeleteyou need to bear in mind that Ian is in Scotland and grows his carrots inside he did say that they do go over but I would think that they should stand for a couple of weeks after the 22 week deadline.
22 weeks is a bit of an odd one for me as mine took almost a month to germinate where as Ian said his were through in 2 weeks so in effect he had 2 weeks more actual growing time as I also pulled mine 22 weeks after sowing ??
ReplyDeleteSo in effect unless you can tell how long they take to germinate then a time scale is pretty irrelevant.
Yet more complications to add to this Carrot growing lark.
P.S I'm sowing a week later so I can clean up at Harrogate....LOL !!
Dan I have only sown 15 I will also be sowing later for Harrogate I also intend to clean up at Harrogate so that makes at least 3 of us.There is plenty to go wrong as it is early days yet
ReplyDeleteThey say it takes Parsnips 45 days to germinate but I guess it's different for everyone.
ReplyDelete"one thing I did learn was that the surface of the sand needs to be damp ti stop it falling in to the newly cored hole"
I found exactly the same out the hard way
Darren I have sown 2 barrels of Parsnips but have chitted them first I expect them to be throught in 2 weeks if not i will re sow them
ReplyDeleteI find chitting to be the best way.