First carrots through

Photos to follow but my first Sweet Candle stump rooted carrots came through in the raised beds today, approximately two weeks after sowing. I shall need to crack on with making some enviromesh covers now, so that I don't have a recureence of last season's carrot fly nightmares.

I have had to re-sow about 15 parsnip stations as I just wasn't happy with the seedlings that emerged. I have placed chitted seed of Polar F1 in these positions but I have marked them with a white label so that I can tell them apart from the Pinnacle variety in the other stations come harvest time. Sod's Law has dictated that there was no pattern to to the failed Pinnacles so there is now a mix of roots in each drum.

A couple of days ago my pumpkins all emerged so I now have 5 plants growing strongly. The patch of land a few miles away that I grew 'Heidi' on last year has been rotovated by the owners and they say they are ready for me when I am. I wasn't going to bother trying to grow a big'un again but they insisted. I think they enjoyed watching her grow as much as I did. Hopefully I won't get swine flu or anything similar at a critical time this season and I can manage the plants rather than leaving them to their own devices. I feel sure I could have grown a 400 pounder if I hadn't been so close to death. I shall have to think of a different name for the biggest Heidi daughter. If Liverpool beat Chelsea this weekend 'Gerrard' is a distinct possibilty.

I potted my first batch of Cedrico tomatoes into 3.5" pots tonight, but the 2nd batch sown a couple of weeks ago seems very slow to germinate for some reason and I only have 3 seedlings up yet. The greenhouse is now bulging with peppers, aubergines, onions and a single cucumber plant which is another earlier than usual sowing as far as I'm concerned, in order to try and have a couple of cu's for the mid-July show I'm hoping to enter for the first time this season.

I am now hardening off my leeks, cabbages, brussels and 8oz onions with a view to planting these out in the next week or so. However, with colder air coming down from the north over the weekend I may have to postpone this, even bring some younger plants back into the greenhouse for a short while again.

Today I had some very good news about a trip I shall be making on the 9th May. I shall give more details nearer the time but all I shall say for now is that I can barely contain my excitement. When you realise (as I did after accepting) that I will be missing the deciding games of the Premiership it will give you an idea of how important it must be.