Pulling my Parsnips blanching my celery

I have had another productive day on the plot.The first row of my Celery was ready for the plastic collars removing and replacing with the blanching material.After attending a couple of NVS. talks where Celery has been discussed in detail I have been trying to obtain some reflective insulation at a reasonable price as this is what the top growers seem to use for blanching. Trevor Last uses a product called Sizal Kraft it is a building insulation with brown paper on the inside and foil on the outside unfortunately my mortgage company will not consider a second mortgage at this time so i had to find an alternative, which I found in Pound land in the form of a car sun screen  which is perfect having soft foam on the inside and foil on the outside.During the blanching and lengthening process you need 3 different sizes of material initially 10" which replaces the pipe then 14" and lastly 18",Trevor sometimes uses a 21" collar if progress allows.With this in mind you need to work out a cutting pattern so as not to waste any.I wrapped my first row tonight and it seemed to work a treat,I also found a roll of foil insulation in Focus diy. this weekend in the closing down sale this is 1m wide by 7m long and cost £16 with the 40% off if it is no good for the celery it will do for the leeks which incidentally are now filling the 32mm lagging already.This is only my second year growing celery last years attempt gave me large heads but I did not get the blanching right this is what I aim to improve on this year.I bet there is a run on sunscreens at the pound shop in the next few days it opens at 9 am tomorrow Simon.

I also pulled a row of Parsnips this evening as they were only for kitchen use and were shading the 4 which I am hoping to select from for the 6x1 collection at Harrogate, I had planted them in last years carrot bed which was filled with compost  I used up some chitted seeds that were left after my drums were planted the seeds were initially grown in toilet roll tubes and then planted in the bed with very little care ,so all things considered they are doing OK and with another 20 still in the bed i may get some decent show ones from them fingers crossed .