Nearly April already!

A lot has happened since my last post but unfortunately I've been too busy at work and home to keep you all up to speed. My Cedrico tomatoes were sown on 16th March and were up within days and are now pricked out into 2" cells. I have several pots of peppers and aubergines to prick out also. I shall be taking care of my tomato seedlings from now on as if they were my very own bollocks, such was my disappointment at not being able to stage a decent set of tomatoes at all last season due to my incompetence.

I still haven't managed to get my parsnip holes bored yet although I should have that job nailed this weekend. They will soon catch up with anything that might have been sown earlier. Then it will be long carrots and not long after that the potatoes will need to be bagged up. It's non-stop from now on.

I have all my composts to hand now. Just before TEGS I went up to Codnor Horticultural Supplies in Ripley, Derbyshire and stocked up on M3 and F2, with a few bags of peat, sterilised topsoil and vermiculite to boot. I didn't think I was going to get it all into my car but thanks to the two guys in the yard they managed to load me up so that I could still see PC Plodfart of the M1 up my arse if I had to. They really were a helpful company, and despite advertising themselves as 'trade only' they don't turn away anyone with hard cash, and I shall be visiting them more often from now on for my composts and feeds. I've never bothered with Levingtons before, preferring to buy cheap and cheerful from B&Q and adding my own nutrients (very haphazardly!) but I'm now prepared to pay extra for better quality material. I hope it makes a difference.

M3 is a high nutrient compost which I'll be using in my pots for growing my onions on, and F2 is a lower nutrient seed and potting compost which I shall be using for my parsnip and carrot mixes.

My shallots are giving me many concerns yet again. Despite a spraying with Folicur quite a few of them have still developed white tip. Once they get it then the affected leaves can grow no more as they extend from the ends. I think I have it relatively controlled and have plenty of bulbs to plant out so hopefully they'll be ok, but they just won't get as big as I'd like. With a planting date of mid-April in mind i've given the beds where they'll grow a generous dusting of Tev04 fertiliser, and will follow that with some dried blood this weekend for extra nitrogen.

I have also pricked out 30 or so celery 'Evening Star' which needs an awful lot of care taking in order not to damage the tiny little seedlings. Whilst celery are a bog plant and you don't want to allow them to dry out I'm still watering these very carefully with a small watering can so as not to get excess water on the foliage. As these are currently residing in my conservatory I don't want them getting scorched during the afternoon when the sun is strongest.

So, whilst I'm behind on some tasks all in all i'm quite happy with progress thus far. And talking of progress, Oscar has started nursery and even has his very own schoolbag! And he's already nearly as tall as me!

TEGS 2012

Apologies for the vacant look on Dave Thornton's face, but he'd just been goosed by a dalek!

The Edible Garden Show 2012

Not long back from helping set up the NVS stand at Stoneleigh Park near Coventry. I had chance to have a quick look around and it's certainly a much bigger event than last year so hopefully there'll be plenty of new members recruited this weekend. I'll be on the stand Saturday and Sunday so come and say hi if you're planning to go.

Www.theediblegardenshow.co.uk

Pipe hype, bad dad and mixer fixer

At the weekend I set up 24 pipes in my greenhouse for long carrots. These are purely to continue experimenting with the pipe concept and because i'd like to try and show off at a local show in July and bench a set of 3 long carrots. I showed 3 elongated stumps last year that hadn't formed a proper stump end and yet got best in show, although I was far from happy with them. The key is certainly in the watering. I shall also have to cover them somehow as I'm sure the carrots will go green through the white plastic. Medwyn found to his cost that a load of his display spuds went green when they were stored in white buckets despite being covered in black peat.

It was quite a fiddle setting them all up, as I had to make a secure wooden frame to screw the back ones to, and the the rest were wired to these to ensure that none of them can move let alone fall over. My mix was very simple. I used 4 parts sieved potato compost from last year's bags to get out all the old potato root and tiny volounteer spuds left behind, and 1 part silver sand. It always seems such a waste just tipping the old spud peat onto the borders and this way I get another year's show crop out of them hopefully. I added a little bit of calcified seaweed and Tev04 to each pipe. This is a very simple mix and indeed for my main sowing of long carrots in April i'm adopting Ian Simpson's mix which is just Levington F2 with added silver sand and some calcified seaweed. He's convinced carrots don't need excessive feed and after a disappointing few years with my own long carrots I'm inclined to agree with him. His results certainly spoke for themselves last season.

In many ways and at first sight the pipe method appears easier than drums full of sand by the very nature of not needing to empty out and refill several tonnes of the stuff, then the hard work coring out the holes, but it does take an awful lot more mix to fill a pipe. If my memory serves me right I can fill a bore hole in sand with about 3 litres of mix, whereas the pipes took about 16. Last year I neglected the watering after July and ended up with superb, heavy roots for the first 20" then a load of roots going off in all directions, so I need to pay much more careful attention this time around and give them a good drink at least every couple of days.

A detachable bottom front board should enable me to excavate down into the border and get as much of the thin (hopefully central!) tap root before I disconnect each pipe. This is then carried onto the plot and laid on its side so that the root is gently pulled out of it by the foliage. A bang on the side of the pipe usually helps unsettle the compost and it slides out reasonably easy. In fact, I can think of a few other things that slide out easily after a good bang.

I've also been dealt a terrible last minute problem. I was going to have my dad's large greenhouse to grow my onions in as he said last year that he couldn't be bothered with it any more. So I duly made plans and worked out where I was going to place said greenhouse, planning to dismantle it and erect it one weekend in April. However, the contrary old tosspot has now decided to keep it because, and I quote, 'It's handy for doing my hanging baskets in when it's raining'. Well thanks a fucking bunch dad you awkward old sod. I gave you some of the best times of your life (wiping my arse/nose, trips back and forth to hospital, dodgy school reports, friends' dads saying they were bigger than you, cleaning up sick from the carpet after my 18th birthday, cleaning up sick from the carpet after my 21st birthday etc) and now you do this to me. Gratitude. Never trust an OAP as they're truly evil. I now have the big problem getting somewhere to grow my onions this season. Git.

However, I have managed to procure a 2nd hand cement mixer in good condition for 40 quid from a work colleague so I should be able to whizz through my root mixes in record time this year. I guess it just goes to show that sometimes God punches you in the goolagongs with one hand and then gently caresses them with the other.

Hahahahaaaahahahaaahaaaaa!

Hilarious!

Lady GaGa and Keeley Hawes in naked lesbian sex romp at National Tap Root Championships

Apologies once again but the last such like heading did wonders for my viewing figures! I even had a visit from the United Arab Emirates and I had visions of an arab logging on in an internet cafe in Abu Dhabi and getting my ugly mug pop up instead of Jennifer Lopez's tits. No doubt his mule got well buggered that night!

Anyhoo, I was given a copy of the Welsh Branch Championships schedule yesterday, and whilst I won't be entering this year as we will likely be on holiday, it is a show I hope to enter sooner or later. That's because it contains the National Tap Root Championships, a class that captured my imagination when I watched Medwyn winning it during an episode of Gardener's World in the mid-90's. You need two specimen's each of parsnips, long beet, long and stump carrots, and current champion is Ian Simpson (photo below).

Ian is giving a talk at Leeds DA on Tuesday on carrots and peas and I may well pop up to listen to that as he always has interesting stuff to say. There are dozens of talks like this up and down the country given by the the top growers in Britain, so if you want to improve your results you really do need to join the NVS and get to as many of these events as you can.p

Hunts carrion

Don't you just love anagrams? Especially when cheating knobs are involved?


During early January I set a load of last season's crop of Kestrel and Amour away in trays in my shed, with a view to chitting these in March. I selected clean seed, with good colouring and will be growing these in bags in the usual way. I shall do this for the next two or three years (depending on resultant quality) and then buy in new stock. As temperatures were often forecast to go well below minus 10deg on several nights during January I covered the trays over with old bath towels and despite being next to a window this was enough to ensure these tubers came through the freezing weather unscathed. I feel most smug. I have now uncovered them and will allow the chitting process to begin in earnest.

Elsewhere, my shallots are really thundering along in the 1litre square pots, with good clean top growth and the odd root just poking through the bottoms of the pots.

As an experiment I dissected a couple of Dave Thornton's humungous donation shallots, and replanted each individual offset of which I managed to get 8. These are also currently growing away well. This was a method advocated by Medwyn many years ago and which should give very round bulbs in theory, as you don't need to mess about thinning the clumps in early May as usual. I don't think they'll give up large offspring, but I will keep them separate from the main plantings and see how they fare in comparison.

As a good weekend is forecast I intend to spend many hours in the garden starting to get the plot shipshape and Bristol Titty fashion. I have a fence panel to repair, a hundred foot run of wire fencing to tie back up after it was flattened by a couple of felled trees, and I shall be starting the Spring project of grubbing up several metres of shrubs that I planted 20 years ago in order to give me more growing space. Now that HMRC have sent me a new form to fill in (Question one: What is your name? Question two: How much do you earn? Question three: Just fucking send it to us) I need to maximise the production potential in my large-ish garden. I also want to make some room for a few chickens sooner or later.....note to WIFE/DAUGHTERS/GRANDSON....these are for egg production and when they don't do that it's Stewpot City. Do NOT become attached to them! People who call their hens 'the girls' need a check up from the neck up.

I need to get as much done as I can this weekend as I am tied up next weekend helping to man the NVS stand at The Edible Garden Show, for which I have manufactured (for free!) a display stand for the various merchandise that we try and sell. Just in case the HMRC are watching, I am doing this out of the kindness of my heart because I love the NVS and don't want to shaft a registered charity out of any money, which I am told sometimes happens but I couldn't possibly comment and indeed nor will I. My lips are sealed. Closed. Stum. Zip.

Rhubarb reminder

2012 ANNUAL LECTURE

John Smiles

‘Revealing What Goes on Behind Closed Doors in the Rhubarb Triangle’

John has worked in the ‘triangle’ for all his life and nobody is better qualified to tell us all about this intriguing early vegetable.His talk will be informative and spiced throughout with humour.

Rhubarb themed refreshments will be available on the night.


TO BE HELD ON MONDAY 12th MARCH 2012 7.30 p.m.

EVERGREEN HALL, CORNHILL,
ALLESTREE, DE22 2FT

TICKETS £5

CONTACT: Peter Cooke for Tickets (01332 553429)
www.derbyshirehortassoc.co.uk

Free Jennifer Lopez nude sex pics hot hot hot

Apologies for the title, but my blog stats tell me that the most popular page (by some distance) was the one I did last year entitled simply 'Loughborough', presumably visited so often by prospective students and visitors to the town doing a google search. No doubt when they click on the link it isn't quite what they are looking for nor indeed expecting and some swearing and cussing ensues, but hey-ho! So I dreamed up the above title, and if I can just convert to growing for showing, two or three of the masturbating teenagers out of the millions that will now undoubtedly visit this blog for other reasons then it'll be a result (well, it worked with Adam Greathead!). Either that or I'll be cited in the Guinness Book of Records as the most prolific cause of lost boners in recorded history!


Well now, I really do have to buckle down from now on in and make full use of every spare moment. My peppers popped through the compost today and in the next few days I will be sowing brussels, cabbages, aubergines and celery indoors. The sand in my parsnips drums has now settled with no further sinkage, so I took the opportunity to drench it with some Jet 5 at a rate of 45ml to 5 litres. Hopefully that has scorched the crap out of any remaining canker spores or carrot fly larvae that might have overwintered. I'll try and get my mixes done in the next week for boreholing next weekend, although my involvement with the NVS stand at The Edible Garden Show might mean that goes back another week.

I really can't praise my friend Helen enough for the superb onions she's grown for me and as Dan is quite rightly intimating, I hope I can do them full justice from now on. They are already as big as anything I would have had growing in the beds in May so I'm off to a flyer with them. Unfortunately my growlight has gone on the blink so they're currently residing in my conservatory but as this weekend sees equilibrium with 12 hours of equal daylight/darkness I'd have been switching the light off anyway.

My conservatory is also home to my Pendle Improved leeks and several trays of Vento onion seedlings.

These are on a par, if not better than any leeks i've produced in the past so i'm more than happy with how they're ticking along, but once again Helen put me to shame as I simply could not believe the size of her leeks which must be at least an inch diameter and 11" to the button. Derek Aldred is going to have some serious competition at Southern Branch this season. And thanks for the tea and cake Helen!

I've also done something I've not bothered with in the past, although it does make a whole lot of sense. I've heard one or two other growers talking about germination tests so I've done one with a few long beetroot seeds from a batch I had left over from last season supplied by a scottish friend. As I grew my best long beet last season I wanted to see if the same seed was viable and i'm happy to report a small pot of seed has germinated, although I won't be starting the boreholes off until early May with Malvern in mind hopefully. I've got two drums prepared already, and hope to get another four set up before then, each with 5 roots in. You can do a germination test with old batches of carrot and parsnip seed also. It certainly saves wondering whether they're ever going to germinate after sowing proper.

RHS Autumn Show Westminster 2012

Don't quite know what they're playing at, but i've heard the above event has now been re-scheduled back to the original dates of 9th/10th October!

Pass it on!

Still in the south!

Food issues notwithstanding i've been very impressed with the countryside around Henley on Thames and the wonderful Chiltern Hills (yesterday). Wonder if they have an annual veg show?

I'm not a religious man but we had a superb guided tour around Salisbury Cathedral this afternoon. Just time for tea and muffin before the long drive back. And i'm still in shock at the magnificence of Helen's leeks!

In the South

Thanks for conning me into your cafe with the promise of 'all day breakfast'. Eggs benedict is not my idea of a brekky, bacon sarnies are! And what the fucking hell is 'brioche' and 'prosciutto ham'? Get some fucking sausages and black pudding in you soft southern nancies!

Gender agenda

Because i'm not doing as many shows this season i'm cutting right back on the varieties i'm growing, which has lead to some difficult choices. It's an easy decision to ditch things like pak choi (who the fuck eats that shit anyway?), spring onions, turnips, swedes, radish and kohl rabi. All these crops were on my list last season for Westminster and I failed to get a single dish of any of them on the table. They looked superb either two weeks before or two weeks after, but all the time they were taking up valuable plot space and needed tending, often to the detriment of more important crops. And they all ended up on the compost heap!




I want to have another crack at caulis so I've decided to ditch runner beans this year, and grow them in the land that is free'd up. I'm also cutting down on spud varieties. I really struggle to get a decent skin finish on white spuds after they've been in store for a month or two, so I'm only growing Kestrel and Amour which any imbecile should be able to grow well, even the northern ring pirates. I'll probably grow about 40 bags of each but before that I need to hack back a load of shrubs and reclaim some new land to grow them in which i'm not looking forward to one little bit. I really wish i'd got into vegetables sooner than I did, rather than planting every colourful, rampant shrub going as soon as we moved into our house in the early 90's.



I will always make sure that I leave room for a few broad bean plants, one of life's true delicacies. Broad beans are about the only veg I grow that I don't aim to show, and Leesa makes a mean bacon with broad bean in orange sauce dinner. I'm still in two minds whether to bother with marrows, a new class introduced for the first time at National level this year with the aim of getting new growers to have a crack. But instead of needing to find a pair they've ridiculously opted to make it a set of 3. Finding a good matching pair is hard enough, and the plants take up an awful lot of room so getting three is going to be amazingly difficult and takes it way out of the realms of a beginner's capabilities in my opinion.



As I want to ensure getting a dish of medium tomatoes at Harrogate(6) and Malvern(12) I need 'wall to wall' Cedrico in one 8'x6' greenhouse, although I won't be sowing these for another couple of weeks yet, possibly even the end of March. This gives me about a spare metre of run in a second greenhouse to grow some small fruited tomatoes (we don't call them cherry these days!) so I am going to be limited to just one variety this year, perhaps 6 plants crammed side-by-side in pots. And the choice couldn't be simpler, for me it has to be Sungold. A quick glance in Medwyn's/Shelley's etc catalogues and you will see varieties listed as the 'only one to grow' for the small fruited classes, such as Piccolo and Tastyno. I grew Harlequin last season after seeing Geoff Butterworth win with it at Westminster in 2010, and indeed I got a 3rd there in 2011 (below), but by Christ do the plants give you cause for concern. They grew in a real weird fashion, the leaves often twisting and corkscrewing, giving the appearance of being very sickly. But it didn't seem to affect fruiting and I picked hundreds of fruits from half a dozen plants, that were very tasty indeed. But Sungold still beats them for taste in my opinion and having come 2nd with it at Malvern, and Sungold beating my Harlequin to 2nd place at Westminster I'm gratified to see that judges aren't being 'snobby' about varieties that aren't normally in the tickets.

However, there is a proviso about staging Sungold, or indeed any tomato at a high level, and that is you need to hire yourself a woman. At 5am at Malvern on the Saturday morning I gave Leesa a bowl of Sungold that i'd hastily picked at midnight by torchlight and said 'plonk those on a board for me, they've got no chance but it's an entry'. When she showed me her effort 10 minutes later I couldn't believe how good they looked, she certainly has an eye for selecting a matching set of fruits, and I was rewarded with a 2nd of course. I very often ask her now to match up a lot of my veg, especially things like tomatoes and peppers, and she even selected my winning cylindrical beet for Westminster when I was adamant a different set was better. Medwyn once won the National with tomatoes on his wife Gwenda's selection so it does appear that ladies do have an eye for that sort of thing.

For hands that do dishes......

It will be another weekend of nil activity on the Smithyveg plot as I am having a weekend away with Leesa in Henley-on-Thames no less, home to the posh rowing prawn sandwich brigade. On Sunday the plan is to go down to Wiltshire to pick up 20 onion plants grown by my onion maestro friend Helen. Yesterday she sent me the photo below so I really am starting with top notch material and I need to make sure I do them justice by growing them on to a reasonable size for showing at the likes of Harrogate and Malvern. More on my plans to do that in future weeks.

In the meantime did anyone see the news that China's Paralympic team has announced it's 5-a-side team.....Sim Pul Twat, Won Lim Gon, Won Kee Eye, Fu Kin Mong and Dave Thornton. Dave is actually off work at the moment with a septic hand having got a splinter in it, and is having to have the pus drained out of it regularly. YIK. I've never mentioned it on here in the past for fear of being labelled a raging homo, but at the start of each gardening session I always try and coat my hands with an anti-septic barrier cream that I keep down the potting shed. A gardener's hands are the most precious tool he has, and without them you're pretty much incapacitated as DT is currently finding out, although it doesn't seem to stop the twat sending me abusive emails. Luckily, I've always managed to keep my hands in tip-top condition (although my ribs still throb like fuck) so I'd thoroughly recommend you all buy some barrier cream. It also stops your hands getting rough skinned and making certain other bodily acts a bit uncomfortable to say the least.