Giants

I received an envelope in the post this week from my old mate Dan it contained some seeds for giant veg in particular Swedes and carrots these have now been sown and we will see what happens He also included a seed from a 170lb marrow which will be sown later on I was tickled by the note that was included in the envelope, what sprung to mind was that there is many a true word spoken in jest also the word mediocre sprung to mind.I have decided to share it with you see below.

I have also got another experiment under way which started last year when I ended up with some Vento plants that did not get planted out  these were uprooted and left to dry thus creating Vento setts I planted these up about a month ago and hey presto they are now sprouting both roots and green tops.If this works I will have Vento much earlier thus giving them more time to ripen.

My greyhound cabbages are through these are just for table use as I prefer them for eating to the round hard varieties such as Kilaton.I do grow Kilaton for showing and also because of its club root resistance as my land is full of the disease and no easy way to get rid of it.

  

Can't believe it - first Whitney Houston, now that bloke from Steps...

Can't believe it - first Whitney Houston, now that bloke from Steps...

Busy Busy day

I spent all day today on the garden as the weather has been milder.Quite a few tasks were undertaken
I managed get all Dave Metcalfes Pendle leeks re potted and colared up with extra support for the flags at they get increasingly longer.Below are a few pictures showing how I do it with a brief description below each

First take off the old collar then remove any dead outer leaves

I replaced the 4" collars with 6" ones today and use 15mm pipe lagging as the collar . I push a small garden cane through the wall of the lagging trying to keep it as straight as possible

Next I gently ease the lagging apart and feed the leek plant through the opening till it is inside 

next I push the cane down in to the compost to the bottom of the pot ,I then get a smaller piece of lagging about 1/2" and feed this on to the top of the cane. at the same time opening it and feeding the flags inside,this is purely to support the flags 

Finished item

I also managed to move another ton of sand in to the parsnip box,I still think I will need another ton to fill it hope it is worth the effort. While I was potting the leeks Chris The Gardner called with news that our valentines date with Sherie Plumb was cancelled The first time in my life I have been stood up,never mind I will just carry on growing my spuds using the same method as last year.Whil on the subject of spuds I started to chit mine today wich involves placing them in trays or egg boxes with the rose end up that is the end with most eyes on it and is the opposite end to where the tuber was attached to its parent plant.The said potatoes are now in the poly tunnel with frost protection enabled and will stay there till the risk of frost has passed and they can be planted out.

Maxine Blue Belle Cassablanca Amoure Purple eyed Seedling  Nadine Sherine 

YA BUY ONE AND YA GETONE FREE I SAY YA BUY ONE YA GET ONE FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I received my second lot of JBA Spuds the only thing is I only ordered one lot it's not often you get anything free from a Scotsman but give Iain his due when I informed him of the mistake he said keep them and even suggested I give some to Smithy but I have decided not to waste them.I shall however be taking some with me to the talk that I am giving in March and hopefully promoting JBA at the same time.I am also looking forward to the talk at our local DA. in Leeds by Sherie Plumb. this is  next Tuesday I hope to gain a few tips to boot.

Back to Blighty

Friday night we got back from Tenerife to the cold spell that is currently gripping the UK, and Saturday we were treated to 2" of snow,

The van is now back on the road and running well fingers crossed it will stay that way. The Leeks and onions are coming on nicely and mine should need a longer collar in a weeks time Daves should also now take a 6" collar and a bigger pot.

 My JBA potatoes arrived while i was away and I will be starting to chit them this week.

 While i was in Tenerife I witnessed the way they protect their banana crops with a large cage it gave me food for thought and I shall be endeavouring to build my own over part of the plot for brassicas, this should enable me to protect cabbages and caulis from airborne predators, as peviously this has been a problem.when I have netted them  at ground level as it has restricted the access to check the crop and has allowed slugs to do damage them, this year I intend co change the situation by building said cage enabling me to walk in to inspect the crop.

 I also purchased some Onion seeds while on the island and if the picture on the packet is anything to go by they should be a great shape and colour for the 250g class.

 I will be sowing them this weekend and only time will tell. As spring is just round the corner I will be sowing pointed cabbage and celery in the next week or so more on this as I perform the tasks    

Tenerife tomorrow

Today I watered everything thoroughly and switched the trays around under the lights.Despite the shock that the onions and leeks received last week everything seems to be in good order.Ted reckons the pipe lagging around the leeks probably kept the frost off. Tomorrow I will be heading to my Villa in Tenerife for the week as the lawns need cutting.

Kelsae

Giant Onions

giants

 Progress on the van front as you can see below, work is well under way with the engine swap should be done tomorrow so I am informed so fingers crossed it is.

 

Not the best of weeks

As I write this I am travelling back from a week in Scotland the land of the pea and carrot champions. The train journey was not the planned method of transport

 but was forced upon me when my van decided to put a piston through the side of the engine 40 miles south of Glasgow. I had to have it recovered home by the AA and continued my journey with a colleague, little did I know it was the start of a week of disasters.

I had a desperate phone call on Tuesday from Ted to say all the lights had gone off in the onion pad overnight and as it turns out so had the heaters meaning leeks and onions were treated to -2 deg. He managed to get them all going again but they may have suffered a check and may go to seed, only time will tell as Simon Smithy and Dan reckon they can stand some frost. I may have got away with it I have decided not to start again at this stage and will keep my fingers crossed.

Thursday evening saw the arrival of an email from Ted saying someone had sawn the lock off the garage where my mixer and shredder are kept, so I feared the worse but luckily both are still there and said garage has now been re secured.

Before I left last Sunday I potted up the first batch of Vento and potted on my Leeks everything looked to be in good order as you can see from the photos below.

Muck

Today between the showers I managed to get some manure in to the onion and leek beds in one of the poly tunnels. I will now leave this on the top for a week or 2 before putting the tiller through it in readiness for planting them in to their final positions around the 21st march weather permitting in other words if it is warm enough I will also add some more soil to top up the bed and give them a watering with Armillatox to kill any underlying nasties.Before planting.

My first sowing of Vento are now poking through the compost, these were from a bulk sowing in a seed tray.I will not be doing this again as it makes transplanting harder.I have sown another 40 in modules today and will grow all of then on under the lights in the hope of getting bigger plants to put out thus getting them to size earlier.This will help me to get them to a better colour come show time.I still have some of last years vento left and they are a lovely colour and condition so this years should keep well .

The First Pull plus Parsnips

Today I decided to start lengthening my leeks which is reffered to as pulling them,a different kind of pulling than the pastime carried out by Loughborough residents. I use 15mm  pipe insulation and the thinner Green garden canes to start with. I have used 2 different lengths as Dave Metcalfes leeks are not quite as long as my own Pendle improved so 5" on Daves & 7" on mine, they are all about the same thickness on the barrel and by planting out time Dave's will have caught up. I have Linda to thank for collaring them all up and marking each plant.

While Linda was at work on the leeks it me time to attack the new parsnip bed / box which I managed to get built outside. All that remains to be done with it now is to fill it with 3 ton of sand,another job for Linda when the weather permits. I chose to build a box rather than use barrels because barrels being round take up too much space and also I had little success last year with barrels while on the other hand I had some cracking specimens in my first year from a box outside,it remains to be seen what will happen this year but it is worth a try. The internal dimensions of the box are 40" x 77" so I should get 24 in there comfortably at 12" spacings.
The whole thing is about 6 planks deep as some are buried underground from the original bed

We also had a visit from Harley who now likes to tell the chickens to go to bed regardless of the time of day.The giant cabbages also got inspected although I am not sure what to do with 2 of them which are approaching 100lb each in weight.

I have also been booked to do a talk at the Huddersfield Allotments Federation I was asked by Jane the secretary who has the allotment next to mine, she has witnessed my progress and asked me if I would be prepared to come and share some of my experiences with the society. I have given a lot of thought to subject of the talk and finally came up with growing for collections. There are a few reasons for this firstly there is more subject matter to go at given that you need more types of veg for a collection, also I attended a good talk last year on collections so I already have a few pointers.Also I won best in show at the Huddersfield Allotments show with a 3x2 collection so hopeful will not be out of my depth. The talk will be on the 19th of March 745pm at Turn bridge working men's club Huddersfield HD1 6SB  all welcome no hecklers.Also if anyone reading this has any good photos of collections for my power point please could you email them to me paul.bastow@btopenworld.com
cheers in advance.

Safety first

Mediocre sense of direction

Well after waiting in most of the day yesterday Mr mediocre himself finally turned up for his leeks.I think he was delaying it as long as he could giving him less time to make a mess of growing them on, he did ask me if he could pick them up in August but I had to tell him where to go on that one.The reason for his late arrival was that he missed the exit on the M62 TOSSER.Good job he has an office based job at least he cant get lost.


Now I have re gained some space I have been able to pot on all my leeks and onions I was surprised to find that my leeks were on a par with the ones from Dave Metcalfe. I also phoned Dan to ask how many Giant onion plants he wanted but he also could not be arsed to answer so I made the decision for him.1 only kidding

GIANT ONIONS FINAL12

Giant and Kelsae transplanted

My Leeks

Daves Leeks

Going for a leek

Last Saturday I braved blizzard conditions to cross the Pennines and in to Lancashire to collect my leeks,

and also the ones that had been ordered by mediocre veg grower Simon umpa lumpa Smithyveg.

 As usual they were purchased from Dave Metcalfe and are his own strain called the Pendle improved, these leeks performed very well for me last year despite a few going to seed. Dave's greenhouse was crammed with leek and onion plants and just inside the door were some larger plants I was informed that these were his new variety and no one would be getting any this year until he knows if they are any good I now have 24 leeks from Dave plus another 30 of my own Pendle improved cultivated from the ones that went to seed.It will be interesting to see how mine perform along side Dave's.

Dave's new variety

Baby leeks in Dave's Greenhouse

Mine and Umpas Leeks safely home

My Leek plants doing ok

 Also my Onions are coming along nicely the giant Peter Glazebrook  ones have 3 true leaves

I have also got 30 Kelsae plants now potted on and have sown another sowing today. This is  to ensure I have plenty to go at .

I will also be sowing Vento in the next few days as soon as I have room, when Smithy collects his leeks next week.

I would also like to wish everyone who reads this a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year.

Lux (not the soap kind)

In reply to Dan Undsworth's comment regarding lux meter, I purchased said item last year from said auction site and have found it useful in gauging the amount of light the plants are receiving,as you can see in the photos mine are getting approx 2500 lux which is more than enough. Anything over 1800 is good according to the so called experts who knows? but it worked for me last year and if it aint broke don't fix it  Linda still has no voice :-) don't worry she does not read this unlike other peoples wives lol.

As can be seen from the picture the sensor is on a retractable cord
 allowing the user to check the light intensity at the back