Home made compost

I know I've mentioned my 'contraption' in a previous post but it's proving so successful I just can't talk about it enough....my missus and kids think i've gone compost mental. ('It's just mud Dad!')

I've always created loads of compost in 2 large wooden bins in the lane at the bottom of my garden but when you empty it out inevitably it has lumps in and bits of undecomposed plant material and other 'cruddy' matter. By sieving it in my new machine (which isn't really that hard to do) I get a lovely friable mix of compost out that looks lovely when added onto the beds and borders. The rough bits left over that won't go through the sieve are just thrown back onto the compost heap. Brilliant!

The season so far

Thought I'd write where I'm at with my sowing and growing for looking back upon in future years!

Conservatory
Tomatoes (Cederico) - through and need pricking out
Peppers - one variety (Sweet Spot) to be pricked out. 2 varieties still not through after 2 weeks
Aubergines - need pricking out
Parsley - need pricking out
Cabbages (Brigadier&Kilaxy) - just poking through
Cherry toms (Sungold & Gardener's Delight) - just poking through

Greenhouse
Kelsae onions x 20 (plants bought in)
Leeks x 20 (plants bought in)
Tasco onions - 3 trays pricked out
Centurion sets - planted in cell trays and showing green shoots
Brussels - Brilliant & Rubine
Shallots - own saved sets potted up (need planting in next 2 weeks) and Matador grown from seed.

Garden
First 2 parsnips just poking through in their prepared stations
All other veg beds dug over and ready for planting

Garage
Seed potatoes in trays chitting.



Apart from that it's still fairly early days but this weeknd will see me 'boring' holes and sowing my long carrots in drums. I have 5 large drums and grow 7 'stations' in each one. I'm off for a whole week so need to use the time wisely and get as much done as possible in the garden.....there are loads of niggling maintenance jobs to do..........in order to get ahead of myself so that I can enjoy the rest of the season.

Scrapped!

I bit the bullet at the weekend and scrapped all the onions and leeks that I bought in January. They just hadn't ever 'taken off' despite being cossetted and quite a few had keeled over and died. I can't put my finger on why they failed.....the ones I had from the same supplier last year were fine.

So, I went over to a guy in Derby (the same chap I get the seed potatoes from) and purchased some more and was amazed at the size and quality of them. And they were cheap too!

So I now have 20 leeks and 20 onions of a decent size that should go on to become excellent specimens for the show bench. The leeks had a pipe lagging 'collar' put over them to start drawing them and to keep them nice and straight , tied to a small cane. The onions will be planted in my newly prepared greenhouse border soil in a month or so and the leeks will go outside in early to mid May. Both beds have had a strong fungicide applied to kill off (hopefully) the onion white rot spores that have plagued me for several years.

Medwyn Williams

Spent an interesting couple of hours last night in Derby at a lecture by Medwyn Williams MBE. He told us how he went about gaining 10 gold medals in a row at Chelsea Flower Show. He certainly is quite a character and kept us all enthralled with the stories of his trials and tribulations in trying to get a display of autum maturing veg ready in time for late May.

If you have ever been to Chelsea and seen one of his displays the thing that strikes you most is the vast array of different colours that can be achieved using different veg, from yellow carrots to purple cauliflowers and blue potatoes.

He's retired from doing Chelsea now but still 'shows' at the larger veg shows run by the NVS, and is actually President of the Society as well as being on several RHS committees. He's 'THE MAN'.

Poor parsnip germination?

Parsnip seed is notoriously slow to germinate when sown outside, and can take several weeks to show through leaving you wondering whether it has failed altogether.

When growing for show those extra few weeks can be vital for the end result (i.e. what you display on the show bench) so I germinate my seed on kitchen towelling indoors.

I put some paper towel at the bottom of a tupperware container, sprinkle some compost over that and water lightly so that it isn't saturated. The seeds are placed on the surface of the compost so that they are just moistened by the wet compost. After a week or so the white root radicle will pop through the bottom end of the seed casing and at this point I put them (very carefully using tweezers) into the prepared stations in my raised beds, covering them over with 1/4" of sieved compost.

2 seeds are placed in each 'station'....the weakest one will be cut away if both come through. The seed leaves should be through the surface of the compost within 2 weeks, and I then place an upturned plastic bottle with the bottom cut out over each seedling to act as a mini-cloche. They soon romp away at that point and growth can be phenomenal if the weather is decent.

Progress report

I was hoping to get my parsnips sown this weekend but it has rained non-stop and meant I've had to postpone it for another week. In fact I've never seen so much water in my garden and my garage floor is flooded. However, it won't hurt to wait another week as I've got everything ready......the soil and compost mixes are sieved and ready to go, and the various fertilizers have been weighed and stored. There's little point in working rigidly to calendar sowing dates if conditions are not right.

I've made a special contraption to make compost sieving easier on my back.....and quicker. I did my compost sieving in about 30 minutes when it used to take me a whole afternoon. I'm actually now looking forward to sieving compost for the carrot mixes in a month or so. It consists of a wooden box with a (6mm dia. hole) mesh bottom, mounted on wheels that run on a wooden frame on a metal table. A polythene 'chute' funnels the sieved compost/soil into a bin (See pics above). This will save me hours and hours in the coming weeks.

Today I also sowed my red cabbage, brussel sprouts, some peppers and some seeds of shallot 'Matador'. These are in my conservatory as it's a little cold to be putting them in my greenhouse yet. The only things in my greenhouse are the shallots, onion sets and onion and leek plants that I 'bought in'. However, now March is here things will really start to gather pace and the main sowing season will soon be upon us.