A few decent hours weather today meant I could start the laborious but totally necessary yearly task of emptying and refilling my parsnip drums. I start by putting an old dumpy bag close to the first drum to be emptied. The sand from the first drum is emptied into the dumpy bag and the second drumis then emptied into the first drum and so on.
This task is made easier by the metal scoop that I had made and which you can see balanced on top of the two drums in the photo.......
This scoop allows me to reach down into the bottom of the drum and scoop out the sand easily so that the drums are emptied in little time.
After emptying each drum the sand in the raised metal frame is given a good forking through to loosen it up. In the past i've just rested the drum on this foot deep layer of sand, using a spirit level to make sure the drums are perfectly upright. However, whilst refilling you will invariably find that the drum may tilt slightly. Even if it doesn't it can still tilt during the settling process, worse still after you have bored the holes meaning there is potential for your roots to bend and the bore hole skews. Therefore I have decided to put some metal bars across the metal frame and rest the drum on these having seen carrot king Ian Stocks do a similar thing on his blog. I shall be doing this next weekend and take some photos to show what I mean. This will also give me a couple of extra inches of growing length as the drums also tend to sink into sand bed.
I still had a few parsnips in the drums from last season which didn't make the showbench, the double rooted monster on the left for obvious reasons. Still, they taste nice having been subjected to several weeks of frost.
The last few years I have grown 7 parsnips in each drum whereas the norm is 3 or 4 for the really top growers. I shall be compromising this coming season by reducing to 5 in each drum as I just don't have dozens of drums like them, just 7 giving me 35 potential roots to choose.
I have also taken a flyer by deciding that I will be growing the variety Polar rather than Pinnacle that I have grown for the last three seasons. Having had a few non-germinating stations last season with Pinnacle, and no Pinnacle seed left I tried sowing Polar in these positions after being sent a trial packet by Shelley Seeds. Whilst I suffered with canker on the Pinnacles there was absolutely no sign of any damage on Polar despite them all growing side by side in the same drums. The skin on them was incredibly smooth, almost opaque and cleaning up was a doddle. I shall also erect some form of barrier over the drums to stop the windborne canker spores in their tracks.
According to Dave Thornton, Polar has a lower canker resistance rating than Pinnacle so it should have been the other way round, but for whatever reason it worked for me. I also found that it carried it's weight well down the root although they weren't as big as Pinnacle as they were sown a good month later. If I can get the girth then I don't see why I shouldn't become National Parsnip Champion in August. What was that Oscar?......
9 comments:
So let me get this right? You empty one drum out into the dumping bag, then simply swap the sand from one barrel to the next?Then I assume with the last drum, put that sand back in from the dumping bag
Is that right?
For what purpose is the swapping over sand in drums done?
I am assuming you are not emptying out old sand and replacing it with new. Please tell me that's not it as the thought I may have to refil my drums again is enough to kill me interest off
Darren ,
Yes you've got the idea. I think my sand is now over 5 years old and if you read the text books advice is to replace after that time but I doubt many people actually do. What does Mr Stocks suggest? I know Mr Thornton hasn't renewed his in many years and he does ok.
As you add the mix to the bore holes over the years the sand will become darker and darker compared to new sand. A lot of growers will try and extract any remaining core after the growing season but I believe life is too short for that.
Why do we empty and refill?
1) To stop the sand over-compacting.
2) To aerate the sand.
3) To make sure any of the old roots that may have broken off deep down are removed.
4) To sterilise it. As I refill I will drench it every 6 inch or so with Jeyes Fluid solution. Cheap bleach is another option I've used successfully.
Cheers mate, yes I didn't notice your sand was a lot darker than mine just assumed it was your own special sand you used in your attempt to conquer the Scotts
Best of luck with the new snips. You gave Darren a scare there with the sand change!
Thought I put the wrong type of sand in my drums
I empty the drums every year - which in itself kills you! - I empty them as Smithy says to firstly get rid of the cores that are in them where the carrots have been growing and secondly to get them nice and aereated. This year I am giving the cone method a real go as there is no flaming sand to shift and do your back in !!
Sadly that is an occupational hazard of this method as you get older.......and Ian IS a LOT older than me!!!
Seems a lot of work for just 5 or 6 carrots/parsnips per drum. So, what's actually against growing them in 4" pipes with a decent growing mix?
The latter method sound as lot easier for the same result, but am I missing something?
Richard, (ya southern nonce)
It does seem an awful lot of work and indeed it is. However, I still believe it is a better option than growing in pipes for a number of reasons.
Growing in pipes used to be the standard way of growing long roots and I well remember visiting a grower in the north east in the early 90's who had 6" pipes 5' tall running around his garden perimeter, all secured to his fence.
For me growing in pipes means an awful lot of mix would be required. By boring holes in sand drums you are effectively making a cone shape that mimics the final shape of your root. Even a 5'6" bore hole takes barely 2 litres of compost mix. A pipe would need several times that.
Also, the tight bore hole shape encourages the root downwards to fill that shape and as the sand is an inert substance with no nutrients the root isn't tempted to delve into it. With a pipe in theory your root could be all shapes and can go round and round especially if you use black ones that attract the heat.
You mention 4" pipes but believe me that wouldn't be wide enough and I know from experience you would get your roots stuck in such a small diameter making it impossible to get them out. I've done it! Therefore 6" is the minimum and therefore more compost needed to fill it.
The other issue for me is movement. Drums of sand cannot move. The guy I mentioned above had his secured to a fence but what if a high wind blew a fence panel down?.....all that work ruined and many swear words uttered! Having them free-standing in some way would leave them open to be being knocked over by human or animal and you would have to spend an awful lot of time erecting something to stop this happening,time I believe is better spent filling f***ing drums of f***ing sand in freezing f***ing temperatures and putting your f***ing back out.
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