After ticking off another 5 'Wainwrights' I travelled to a village near Kendal for a talk by Ian Simpson on stump carrots organised by the Westmoreland DA of the NVS. Ian has won stumps at the National a couple of times and he gave me a lot of food for thought about how I grow my stumps.
His attention to detail is quite outstanding and I shall be changing my methods slightly to mimic his methods a little more. The one thing that struck me most was the texture of his borehole mix, which we were able to experience as he'd bought some with him to hand round to the assembled group. Now that really is attention to detail, to even think of bringing some along with you to a talk! I riddle my compost through a 1/4" sieve to remove any lumps but he goes even further and then puts it through an 1/8" sieve. He is adamant this fine textured medium gives him the superior skin finish he is famous for. He also bought along photocopied handouts showing the finer points of his presentation and I will be looking back at this in the coming months during my preparations. If growing Sweet Candle, depending on your show date you need to count back 22 weeks for your sowing date.
And he is a great fan of the concentrated garlic sprays for warding off carrot fly, so much so that I bought a bottle of the stuff for 3 quid. Dan Unsworth mailed me tonight saying the stuff retails for 12.75 so as a tight-fisted Yorkshireman he's well chuffed! And it was good to meet up again with my blog following pals Paul Bastow, Paul and Linda Wlodarczak, James Park and of course Dan, not to mention NVS legends Gareth Cameron and Ronnie Jackson. Nice also to meet Chris Crowther and Chris Jackson for the first time.
In the last few months it's been a real privilege to listen to some of the NVS 'greats' lecture on their growing methods for different crops and it's great credit to them that they are prepared to do this and try to help others improve. For my part I hope to give as much of that information out to as many beginners and improvers during the coming months.
6 comments:
Glad you posted this as it reminded me that I actually need to plant my Sweet Candle in early March if they are to be ready for our August show.
I take it the long rooted carrots such as the St Valery will need to have 25 weeks then, which means I need to get them in before the end of February?
Looks like a great talk, went to Hampshire DA for first time for Sherie Plumb talk on Runner Beans, unbelievable set up she has.
Awesome mate, I', also into the walking and just mist out on the Malvern Hills week before last due to the potato day
Misty....I actually sow my Sweet Candle before the long carrots these days by a week or two. 20-22 weeks should therefore give you good long carrots.
Damo......I saw Sherie speak on spuds in November. Yes she has a great set up but there's no substitute for the huge amount of work she does to achieve success.
Blicky, the Malvern ridge is one of my favourite walks. Especially if you've just won the Midland championships with tomatoes! LOL
Thanks for that. Phew, at least that takes a bit of the pressure off, I was starting to panic.
hi simon great to see you in flesh i think! but the talk was very good and he did go on about steralized soil have looked on net how to do my own but will have to wait till her indoors goes off for a couple of dAys
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