An Event full Week

Monday was spent up in the Yorkshire Dales building a dry stone wall.
Wednesday I took Linda to her first NVS meeting. as usual we were the youngest there also Linda was the only woman in attendance I'm not really sure what she made of it as she is not into veg growing but at least that is her holiday out of the way for this year. The speaker at the meeting was John Branham he gave a talk on collections which was very interesting as I am competing at Harrogate against Smithy Dan and a few others with a collection of 6 one of each type of veg there is a few quid on it so I need to be on top of my game.
Thursday I had a visit from Richard (Veg Patch Blog).He can visit any time thanks for the beer by the way Richard. I gave him a couple of Pendle Leeks and am already getting texts for advice on what to do with them.He is a really nice bloke for a southerner.
Today I earthed up some of my spuds planted out some sprouts they are Crispus which are club root resistant they have a great root system already. I staked every plant as we have had lots of wind lately.

The trial Brokali  Calbrese and Swedes have settled in nicely.

Some of the spare Leeks still in pots are splitting the 22mm pipe lagging and are doing as well as the ones planted in the bed.I will try to get them planted in to their final positions this weekend.

The Peter Glazebrook Giant Tomatoes that were grown from seeds that Dan sent me have started to form trusses and I have noticed that some of them are double this must be what produces the Giant toms.I have heard that you should only leave one tom on each truss.with this in mind I contacted Peter for advice this was his reply:-

usually find the largest Tomato grows on the third truss, so the first can

be removed, the others are thinned out to leave perhaps one or two per
truss depending on how they set. Finally if I have a large tom. growing
which will be timed for the show, I may remove all other fruit and trusses
so that the plants energy is concentrated on the remaining one.

I have lost about 4 more Over Winter Onions this week from going to seed, but still have 40 left so hopefully they will survive for a few more weeks and I will get a set op 3 after all as they are bulbing up nicely. 

I also got my first text and e-mail from the  British Potato Council this week they run a free service which warns you when there is a risk of blight in your area which is worked out by a formula devised by a blke named Smith (yes they get everywhere) Blight forecasting has often been based on the occurrence of "Smith periods". A "Smith period" is a 48 hour period in which the minimum temperature is 10°C or more and the relative humidity exceeds 90% for at least 11 hours during the first 24 hours and for at least 11 hours again during the final 24 hours. However, any period of warm, humid weather increases blight risk.They also have spotters and informers who report any Blight in your area