Adios!

Last post for a few days.....off indulging my other passion of hillwalking in the Lake District. Will be back on Tuesday 15 'Wainwright's and 30 miles later!

Potatoes for show

To grow really top quality potatoes for show you need to remember one thing.......don't bother growing them in the ground !

If you do you'll only get rough, randomly shaped tubers with an assortment of skin blemishes and diseases as well as the usual holes from slug and pest damage.

They'll be fine for eating but to compete on the showbench they need to be grown in large pots of peat. This involves quite a bit of time and expense but the end justifies the means. As you can see from the pic my spuds gleam in comparison to the other entries around me and justifiably gained first prize.

The reason is that only the roots of the plant come into contact with the soil as they grow through the bottom of the pot. The actual swelling tubers are kept nice and cosseted in their sterile, peat growing medium and as a result they come out as clean as a whistle. Until they get their roots out into the soil you have to put a bit of general fertiliser in the bottom the pot.

I put a couple of seed tubers into the bottom of each peat filled pot. As the peat settles you may also have to top up each pot with a little more peat (in effect 'earthing up') and at this time of year you need to keep an eye out for predicted night frosts and cover them with fleece or sheets of newpaper.

Once growing away strongly the heavy foliage will need to be supported with canes and strings. Harvesting usually happens 12-14 weeks after planting but don't dig up the tubers straight away. What I do is cut off the foliage then leave the pots for a week or so (I actually lift them and take them into my garage) so that the potato skins can harden. If you lift them straight away the skins will rub off at the slightest touch and render them useless for showing.

If it's a week or two util the show you can sort them into sets and store them back in the peat until the night before the show. Only them

Collaring leeks

Over the last few days I've been taking the 14" collars off my blanch leeks and turning them to make them into 18" collars. The collars are made from builders' damp proof course material and will blanch the barrel.

Checking back on my blog I didn't do this until early August last season so they would appear to be way ahead of schedule. Hopefully, they'll end up a lot meatier than last year's leeks as a result.....and they were the best I'd ever grown!

I stripped away any old or decaying foliage whilst I was at it. The top pic also shows me manipulating the barrel carefully to straighten it as some of them may be slightly curved. At this time of year they're quite supple and it's easy to bend them back into shape. The 2nd pic shows the same leek now in it's longer collar, supported against a cane to keep the whole lot growing upright. Horizontal canes support the foliage as they will now start to get quite heavy and would otherwise flop on the soil and even break.

The 3rd pic is a view of the raised bed they're growing in. You may also notice my shallots in pots growing on one side of the bed....these will be harvested during June and I may sow some beetroot in their place. At the side of the bed you can see some more canes with cherry tomatoes planted against them. As you can see I do try to make the most of every possible square foot of space that I can.

Shallots

I said on 17th April that I had thinned my shallots to leave 2 in each pot. This involves carefully peeling back the outer skin and breaking away all the other small bulblets to leave just 2. These will then swell quickly with the extra room they have, and should be a better, more rounded shape also.

The thinnings are planted in front of the pots. When you do this they are often strangely shaped, being almost square in some cases. But they will become round now that they are not squashed up against their brothers and sisters and should be ideal for entering in the pickling classes for shallots under 25mm.....although this can be under 30mm in some shows!

The pic shows a pot with a thinned out set of 2 with the thinnings planted into the soil in front of them. I would have given them a sprinkling of dried blood after thinning to give them a nitrogen boost, and have recently taken to watering them with phostrogen to help with the ripening process and to firm them up ready for lifting in the middle of June. More on that then.

Potatoes in bags

I really need to get the rest of my potatoes in but as I write it's raining hard outside. I have got 2 varieties in.....Kestrel (coloured)and Winston (white) but still need to get Amour (coloured)/Nadine (white) and Maxine (coloured) in. We're away next weekend so if I don't manage it this coming week they'll never go in.



As I've mentioned before I grow my spuds in large pots or special bags (see pic). Each bag is filled to the top with sieved peat to which I add a sprinkle of seaweed meal and dried blood. The bags are then placed into a trench in the soil and soil is pushed around the sides of each bag to keep it in place. 2 potatoes are pushed down into the bottom of the bag and the whole lot watered well.



The idea is that the roots of the potato grow through the holes in the bottom of the bag into the soil, thereby benefitting from the soil nutrients also. As the actual swelling 'new' potatoes never come into contact with the soil as such, they will come out of the bag with superb, clean skins that require the minimum amount of washing for the show bench. As the haulms grow they'll need supporting with canes and string and any flowers that are produced will be pinched out so that all the plants energies go into producing large, shapely tubers.



Before planting each seed spud, I reduce the number of chitted shoots on each dependant on the variety. Maxine for instance always struggles to produce large spuds so I only leave one shoot on each. I leave all shoots on Winston as this produces large tubers quite easily.

Dahlia cuttings

I drove a 220 mile round trip this morning to Station House Nurseries on the Wirrel to collect some dahlia plants I'd had my eye on since Malvern Show last September. The variety is Emma's Coronet and it stuck out on the bench at Malvern like a beacon. I thought it was the most stunning looking vase in the show.......a cracking pink with white blends.

http://www.eurodahlia.com/

As well as this variety I'm also growing my tried and tested varities taken from cuttings from the best of last years tubers.

They are:

Kenora Sunset

Jomanda

Lismore Moonlight

I keep my selected tubers over winter in buckets of dried peat (labelled - most important!!!) after cutting off the foliage and dusting any cut ends with yellow sulphur to protect against rot. This usually happens in November after the first frost has blackened the foliage.

The buckets are carefully watered during April and eventually the tubers will send up cutting material which is severed as close to the legion with the tuber as possible. They are put into compost around a small pot, labelled and covered with an old plastic half bottle to act as a mini-greenhouse. Roots should start to form withing 2 or 3 weeks at which point they are potted on singly before planting out during mid-June. More on that then.

Onions putting on girth

The onions I bought in March are probably the best I've ever grown at this stage in their development. Planted in the greenhouse border soil, and supported by canes and metal rings the foliage is large and strong, giving hope that this will convert into large bulbs within the next couple of months. The bases of the plants are already a good inch in diameter and are getting noticeably larger each day.

The pic above shows them planted next to tomatoes and the idea is that the onions will have grown and been harvested before the tomato plants get too large. As I should soon start to feed the tomatoes with a high potash feed this will be ideal for ripening the onions also.

My one big fear is that the disease onion white rot will reappear and ruin my chances. Once it takes hold the onion can quickly wilt and when you lift it there is a fluffy mould on the bottom of the bulb. As I treated the soil with a special powder I'm hoping that I won't have this problem this year.....fingers are crossed!

AC Milan 2 Liverpool 1

Hahhahahahahhhaaa haha heheheeee hahaheheee hahehe hahee

I'm so happy!

Thinning long carrots

On the 16th April I mentioned that I'd thinned my long carrots to 2 per 'station'. This allows the strongest 2 to grow away and means you have a spare should one of them die for whatever reason.

Last weekend I reduced each pair to one only per station and the pic shows me cutting away at soil level the carrot that I don't want to keep. If you pull it out you risk disturbing the one you are leaving behind. Sand is pulled up around the remaining carrot to keep it upright. The trick is to try and leave all the remaining carrots that are as alike to each other as possible, bearing in mind that uniformity is an important criteria in the judging of show vegetables.

A scattering of slug pellets was applied also as despite the fact that they grow in coarse sand some slugs always manage to climb up the barrels and to crawl across the sand in search of a tasty morsel.

This therefore makes me laugh when I hear the organic, beardy weirdies banging on about coarse grit and eggshells etc deterring slugs......what a crock of sh*te. Don't let them put you off using pellets. They are the only things that actually work....slugs seem drawn to them as if they're under some death trance and death is fast.....so they never get to your prized produce. And you'll also be told they're harmful to pets and wildlife. This is also a bag of b*ll*cks. I've never yet seen a bird chewing on a slug that has been killed by a pellet. They are just so unappetising the putrid remains will lie there festering for weeks. And if a bird did somehow decide to eat such a thing don't worry.......it's probably so thick it deserves to die !

Last year I started to grow a pumpkin that appeared to be aiming for huge proportions. At one point it was putting on 2 " of circumference every day reaching about 1000mm ......but then it just stopped for no apparent reason and started to rot.

After clearing it away I found the tell-tale sighns of a mouse nest right next to the decaying remains of the pumpkin. I think a mouse had managed to tunnel into the pumpkin and caused it to collapse. Mice cannot resist the seeds you see.

I wasn't going to bother trying again but I couldn't resist and I purchased another packet of seeds (not the 'special' ones I acquired last year however). The seeds were sown a fortnight ago and they were through in a few days. The first 'true' leaves are now showing and the plants will need potting on into a bigger pot fairly soon.

Hopefully, I'll have more luck this year.....but I'll have to set a few mouse traps nearer the time.

Sowing dates

After discussion with a couple of guys in my office I thought I ought to explain about my sowing dates. If you're growing for kitchen use only then ignore my advice.....all my sowing dates are geared to producing vegetable exhibits for the 'show season' which runs from the end of August to early October. As a result I have an absolute glut of veg all at once from which I will choose the best looking and most uniform specimens for the show bench. My wife has to freeze an awful lot of produce but we also give loads away as there's just too much for us to eat!


Most growers who grow for culinary purposes only will have already sowed their runner and french beans for example....whereas mine will not be sown for at least another fortnight.


That's not to say my veg doesn't taste good........any veg destined for the show bench should be of the utmost quality and fit for the table also. (Although, truth be known I'm not a great veg eater .....gimme a plate of dead animal any day!!!!)

Peppers

What an awful weekend....too wet to do anything on the garden and very frustrating therefore as I had loads of plans such as spud-planting etc, although I did manage to sow my first couple of rows of beetroot. I'll sow another couple of rows for the next 3 weekends which will give me a succession of beet for most of the late Auguest to September/October shows. At least all this rain has topped up the empty water butts.....but there's no need to overdo it!!!

The greenhouses are bursting with trays of flowers and veg plants, so it's a constant juggling act over the next few weeks as I fight for space and time. One thing I'm pleased with is the growth of my sweet peppers. These are creeping into shows more and more as more people grow them. I grow them in large pots in my tomato greenhouse or in my conservatory where the hot, dry conditions suit them. However, they inevitably take a back seat to my other veg and don't get the care and attention they need for really good specimens like the ones above (bottom) that I photographed at last year's Malvern Show. The variety was 'President' but I haven't located it in any seed catalogues. They were a beautiful bright orange colour and very large succulent looking too.

Mine tend not to ripen in time for the shows but it's perfectly acceptable to show green peppers as long as they are even in size and in good condition. The other pic above (top) is of my 2nd prize entry at last year's Sutton Bonington Show.......I've never won a 1st with peppers so I'll be hoping to rectify that fact this year.

Happy 40th Birthday !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not bad for an old bird !

Happy birthday xxx

Cabbages and brussels planted

I planted my cabbages and brussels at the weekend.....the varieties i'm growing are


Red cabbage - Maestro 6 plants
Green cabbage - Brigadier 8 plants and Kilaxy 6 plants
Green brussel - Brilliant 4 plants
Red brussel - Rubine 2 plants


I don't grow many as I simply haven't got the space and I grow more or less the exact amount I need per show. This means I really have to look after each plant because if one fails then I won't be able to exhibit cabbages at all the shows I want to.


Each planting hole is dusted with a liberal amount of lime to ward off club root and well watered. The base of each plant is then squirted with derris dust at soil level to kill off any of the cutworms that often nibble the stalk and cause it to collapse. Slug pellets are also scattered around the plants.


I also have to make sure I erect some form of barrier to stop pigeons from nibbling the new green leaves. They are a real nuisance in my area. In past years I've erected green netting over the entire patch but this can be awkward and hinders watering....and the cabbage white butterflies still manage to get through ! This year I've opted for tying string from post to post across the patch about 2 foot off the ground. Pigeons don't like having things above them as they cannot take off so they tend to leave you alone.....I didn't believe it either until last year when I tried it and it works! Old CD's dangling down also help to spook them and keep them away.


I shall still have to spray later in the season when the cabbage whites are around. Someone has told me that a smelly 'stew' made from rhubarb leaves watered over your cabbages and caulis deters them from laying their eggs and also acts as a liquid feed....so I'll certainly be giving that idea a go.

Stumps part II

Further to my last post here are couple more pics showing me boring the holes in the sand bed and a close up off the prepared stations with a small indentation in the top of the compost where I place 5 or 6 seeds. The seeds are covered with about 4 or 5mm of compost and the whole bed will be kept moist until germination.

Stumps

Last weekend I sowed my 'stump' carrots. These differ from the 'long' carrots in that they are shorter and must have a distinct stump-shaped base from which the finer, hair like tap-root comes. They are grown in raised beds (paving slabs on their sides in my case) filled with sand as for the long carrots but they only need to be a couple of feet deep. Whereas the long carrot drums are deliberatly kept dry to force the root to go down in search of moisture stump carrots must be kept moist at all times to ensure even growth, making them squat, plump specimens about 6-8" long.

5 or 6 seeds were sown in each station and at this time of year they'll soon be through. The biggest problem I have is stopping cats digging in the sand to have a shit (bless 'em eh?). Each cluster of seedlings will be thinned to 2 then 1 after a couple of weeks or so. Carrot root fly may be a problem but I've been sold a special powder (God it stinks!) which I'm told will ward them off. It needs to be sprinkled around the shoulder of the carrot during July when the root fly are around.

A set of 3 matching 'stumpers' like the ones above always look quite striking on the show bench. The judge is looking for good uniformity, good even colouring (usually orange !) and above all good condition.