Why is it so easy grandad?

Well it now feels as if the season has really started with the planting of the shallots (Hative de Niort) into 3" square pots. As a tight bastard I used the compost from last years spud bags which I won't be using for spuds again as all my spuds were riddled with scab. I did add some Vitax Q4 and some nutrimate to the potting which should see them through to planting out time in late March/early April. In all I had 34 large bulbs and 14 for the pickling class that have survived through the Winter. I lost more than usual this season to soft rots for some reason. I also had a few bulbs that started shooting in December and these were immediately binned.

The shallots are in one of my greenhouses for now, with no added heat whatsoever. I did manage to get it cleared of the old necrotic tomato plants last weekend and gave the glass a good spraying with Jeyes Fluid inside and out so that any lurking nasties have been eliminated.


















The only other thing growing at the moment are these pots of show daffs for my local show at the end of March. Growing them in this way allows me to put them outside if I need to slow them down or leave them inside if I need to speed things up. It also means I can bring them under cover if rain is forecast just before the show that may spoil the blooms. I don't show any daffs anywhere other than my local show but I do like to have them at their best all the same.

















Yesterday I sowed a small tray of onions, the seed supplied by Ian Stocks from Scotland, a strain I believe from an exhibition heavyweight Kelsae type. I hope to be able to grow a few to 3 or maybe 4lbs this season.

I had some of my seeds arrive from Shelley Seeds on Friday, and just await the delivery of some more from Medwyns and DT Browns. It's always nice to get your hands on the varieties you want, and indeed I had a bad dream the other night that Shelleys were unable to supply my usual Cedrico tomato seed, but luckily they turned up in the package so no worries there. If I had to put money on one crop where I think I could realistically get into the tickets at Llangollen it would be tomatoes.

And finally today my grandson Oscar watched his first Man U match, the boys beating a 2nd rate Liverpool team in the FA Cup very comfortably. However, as you can see he was absolutely disgusted at the horror tackle that quite rightly got Steven 'over-rated' Gerrard sent off. His little Man U shirt was in the wash!