A week off.....

....so I've been catching up on the preparation of the plot and assessing where things are at. My first sowing of tomatoes Cedrico have been pricked out but these cold blasts we are currently experiencing mean they are confined to the conservatory for now.



I have had one parsnip pop through in the drums so the rest surely cannot be too far behind.



My Pendle leeks are not too bad, about the thickness of my thumb and a couple of foot high stretched out.



My shallots made good top growth eventually, but it was by far the latest I've ever experienced. I have been hardening them off during the day but bringing them back into the greenhouse during the night. I shall be planting these next week as soon as the weather improves.

This is the bed where the leeks and biggest shallots will be planted. I spread a full box of blood, fish and bone across the middle where the leeks will be planted and also several handfuls of seaweed meal for added nitrogen.

With an eye to a show in mid-July I have got these broad beans popping through now.

This old galvanised water tank has served me for several years as a water storage tank for my greenhouses, but has now sprung a leak. I drilled a few more large holes in the bottom, lined it with a couple of inches of broken crock and brick, and am now in the process of filling it with decent soil. The top few inches will be a mix of bagged sieved topsoil and sand.....more on my intentions for this in the coming weeks. All I'll say for now is .......Malvern!

As an experiment I've sown this old kitchen swing bin with some carrot seed 'early Nantes', as well as some old foot long sections of drainpipe set into the greenhouse border soil. I'm hoping to be able to get a set of 3 carrots for the same show in July that I've already mentioned. I sieved some compost and sand, well mixed in with some vermiculite, a handful of superphosphates, Vitax Q4, seaweed meal, lime and potash. They'll stay in the greenhouse until harvesting. These don't have to be top quality as it's only a small village show. If it doesn't work out I won't have wasted much time

One final thing, as the author of a blog where I try to wind up certain sections of mankind I've always been prepared for the moment one day, when someone walks up to me and, without warning, knocks me out...probably a Liverpool fan or an organic gardener or an animal rights activist. If you ever see me at a show lying unconscious on the floor you will therefore probably be able to guess what has occurred. So it was with some not inconsiderable trepidation of the arse-twitching variety that I was approached at the NVS North Mids District Association meeting the other night by an absolutely huge bear of a man who put his hands on my shoulders and asked me "Simon? Simon Smithyveg?" Just as I was expecting him to announce that he was Peter Snazell's brother, or the President of the Steven Gerrard Fan Club or the secret love child of Gordon Brown's mum, and as I was wishing I'd worn the brown underpants he said to me, "I read your blog and it's a cracking read", and he then proceeded to show me a Liverpool joke on his mobile phone. With that one act alone he quickly became one of my best mates! He also had some cracking advice on growing big onions which I'll reserve for next season. Cheers Bob!