End of Winter?

It always feels good to get the parsnips on the go and hopefully signals the end (at last!) of this long, cold winter we've had. The last few weeks have seen me getting the drums ready and after a couple of weeks of settling and topping up (you'll be surprised how much the level sinks) today I could start boring the holes.

I start by taking out a long plug of sand, up to 3', by plunging a length of plastic pipe about 3" dia. into the sand. By marking the pipe with a bit of tape I can make sure I take exactly the same amount of sand out of each 'station'.

The holes are then finished off with a crowbar taking great care that neighbouring holes do not distort by rotating the crow bar very slowly, to give me a long conical hole about 4" dia at the top.

The crowbar shown here is about 4' down into the sand

And so to the 'magic mix'. After mixed success last year when I increased the ratio of soil I've gone back to the mix that served me so well in 2008.

15 litres sieved compost

4 litres vermiculite

3 litres sieved soil

3 litres sieved sand

2 oz Vitax Q4

2 oz superphosphate

2 oz sulphate of potash

2 oz seaweed meal

2 oz lime

The nutrients are all sieved with a fine flour sieve and and bits that do not pass through even after grinding down are discarded. At a recent talk former National Champion (collection of 6) Mark Roberts felt that the skin could be scorched by large particles of things like the seaweed meal and so you had to make sure they were dust fine.

The compost, sand and soil (bagged sterilised topsoil) are passed through a 6mm sieve to get rid of any large lumps. I mixed all the lightweight ingredients first to make sure all the nutrients are evenly disributed before adding the sand and soil for a final mix together. This is what you are left with, and this amount was enough to give me 10.5 stations, so I will need to do this about 5 times to do all my drums.

The mix is then trickled into each hole, slowly at first to make sure it doesn't clog up near the bottom and cause an unfilled airlock below it. I used to prod the sand every now and then but Mark Roberts said he didn't do this so I've not bothered either. With the use of a metal funnel I was able to bomb through the first two drums in record time.

I do 7 'stations' in each drum. If I ever get to the stage where I'm only growing for National and regional NVS shows I would only do 3 or 4 in each drum as 7 is too many for top level growing, but I don't have this luxury yet. A pane of glass is put over each drum to keep cats off and that is it until the seed has chitted.


The seeds are on a warm windowsill between two sheets of damp paper towelling. These should start to sprout in a week or so and then I will place the seed in the drums, 2 per station. More on that later.