Chill

I was shocked to look out of the window this morning to see there was a frost, and a hard looking one at that. I say shocked because the overnight temperatures predicted on my i-phone were in the region of 4 or 5 degrees C and the skies were cloudy last night so I didn't bother bringing the peppers and aubergines inside. I also left the shallots outside. In a panic and expecting to find several trays of snot I rushed down to the greenhouse and was relieved to find that all appeared to be well although a couple of shallots had wilted. The water in the watering cans had not frozen so it was not a particularly penetrative frost. Still, for a few moments my bollocks shrivelled to the size of grapes, my tallywacker was well and truly down and my heart had sunk as I'd contemplated starting all over again with certain crops. But no, all is well with the World once more.

With my parsnip drums done my thoughts are now turning to long carrots which I shall be doing this weekend. As I've said in a previous post I am going back to boring the holes completely rather than coring then boring as I have done in the last couple of seasons. I admit my parsnips were cored then bored because I've had better results that way recently. Parsnips are more robust than carrots and I find when they germinate they just go for it and the tap roots sole mission is to start motoring downwards. Besides I'm only using a 2.5" coring tube so the crowbar still opens them out into an inverted conical shape to induce the classic bayonet shape. Three years running Scottish Branch champion long carrot grower Ian Stocks mentioned in his recent talk that he bores his long carrot holes and whilst I was sitting there listening to him it suddenly struck me that since I'd been coring I haven't exhibited a really decent set of long carrots, when it was always one of my strongest crops to show.

After much thought the mix I'm going to be using is:

4 buckets sieved multipurpose compost

1 bucket fine vermiculite (passed through a 1/4" mesh)

1/2 bucket silver sand

"a handful" of Vitax Q4 (passed though a flour sieve)

"a handful" of calcified seaweed (passed though a flour sieve)

Plus a few pinches of phorate insecticide.

This is an amalgamation of Ian's and Dave Thornton's mixes so in many ways I'm taking a punt by changing over to a new mix that I've never used before. But having grown long carrots for 15 years I'm quite happy that my experience will allow me to adapt and I may foliar feed if I feel it is absolutely necessary. I shall also be erecting a wooden framework around the drums and stapling a shit load of enviromesh to it in order to keep carrot fly and willow aphid at bay.

I've had several messages from people this season saying they are having trouble doing their bore holes as they collapse at the top. It can only mean that your sand is not moist enough and you need to give it a good soaking and then leave it for 30 minutes to allow the water to soak through the top few inches. Moisture lower than that really shouldn't be a problem. When boring with a crowbar push it down as far as it will go and start turning in a circular motion, gently at first. Sand that is properly moist will crunch as you manipulate it into shape. Now try and force the crowbar down even further and turn some more, until eventually you will reach as low down as the crowbar will go, maybe even going into the soil below the sand for a few inches. At this point I wrap some sticky tape around the bar level with the sand surface so I get all the holes the same depth. Turn the bar a bit more so you increase the hole to about 4" diameter at the top and then move onto the next hole. It is at this point that you may start to slightly distort the hole you have just done but if you take it slow and steady you will be fine. Some sand will also fall into the holes you've done, but once I've done the last one I will go through them all again, thus tidying them up and taking care of any sand that has fallen into them since the boring process began. Then you can start filling with your mix. I can always get 7 carrots in a drum quite easily but if you're just starting out you may want to limit this to four or five.

I know several growers (Ian Stocks is one of them) who bore a hole then fill it before boring the next, but i've always preferred to do all the holes first then fill. There is no right and wrong way. Do whatever works for you and enjoy the experience.