Cutting corners

Well that was a good gardening weekend wasted! I haven't really eaten for three days so have been feeling very weak and relying on my tiny amount of fat reserves and I also couldn't stray too far from a lavvy for fear of shitting myself. Anyone who recently bought shares in Andrex....you have me to thank for the sudden rise in share price! My Easter egg from the kids remains untouched when usually it doesn't get past mid-morning Easter Sunday! The result of all this is that I now find myself well behind schedule and having to make some hard decisions. I am going to do something that I've been telling you all not to do for the past few years, and that is to leave my long carrot and stump beds as they are. That's right, i'm NOT going to empty them out and refill them which I've always considered an essential yearly task to stop compaction and make hole boring easier. It also puts air into the sand. Will this make a difference to my final root quality? Only time will tell, but I have given the drums and beds a drenching with Jet5 to kill any lurking nasties and will give the stump bed a scuffling with the rotovator all the same. No doubt the Yorkshire fanny swervers will accuse me of making more excuses, but just imagine their shame when I still manage to beat them at Harrogate in the 3x2 Bullshit Bloggers Challenge 2012.



In between toilet dashes I have managed to bore and fill 5 of my 7 parsnip drums, and I am now waiting for the seed to chit indoors. If you want to see my method for boring go to last year's link  http://smithyveg.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/sun-has-got-his-twat-on.html?m=0 as I couldn't be fucked to do it all again in my delicate and life-threatened state.

As you can see this year I've gone to 6 holes per drum (it was only 5 last year) as I couldn't see any improvement in the size of root against what I used to get when I used to bore 7 holes per drum. 6 is therefore a compromise and I find it very easy to get this many in a drum. My mix this season is pretty much the same as last;

15litres of sieved F2

4 litres of medium grade vermiculite

3 litres silver sand

3 litres sieved topsoil (bagged)

3oz sulphate of potash

3oz of superphosphate

3oz of powdered calcified seaweed

3oz of Tev04 (or powdered Q4 if you can get it)

6oz of garden lime


I go heavy on the lime as canker spores aren't supposed to like limey soil. I'm also going to spray the foliage with SB Plant Invigorator this season. This lot was enough to do just under 8 holes, so needs repeating several times to complete the 42 holes that I am growing this season. I mix the compost, vermiculite and the various nutrients first and add the heavier sand and soil last, doing it all by hand in a large shallow container to make sure everything is well mixed. The cement mixer I thought I was going to acquire cheap from a work colleague never materialised. Maybe next year.

Elsewhere, I potted my Pendle Improved leeks into 4" square pots in M3 and this will be the final potting before planting out in May. I'm really pleased with these and they are certainly on a par if not better than anything I've had at this time of year. The root systems were superb. Other growers will no doubt have huge plants by comparison, but my philosphy with leeks is always 'nice and steady goes it'. I shall be putting a whole box of blood, fish and bone plus a generous amount of seaweed meal into the bed where I intend growing the 24 plants. One thing I've learnt is that leeks like a lot of feed. And any excess is utilised by the globe beet that I always grow alongside them to very good effect.

My (Helen's!) onions in 12" pots seem to have settled in nicely and there is new growth appearing from the centre. Most plants have 7 leaves so I'm hopeful of a few large-ish onions this season. A few of them are leaning over at the base due to they way they grew before planting out, but by supporting the foliage up the entire length they should right themselves in due course. The white substance is a light top-dressing (a teaspoon full) of ammonia sulphate (N) which i'm hoping will boost the foliage production but not excessively so.

With all alliums grown indoors thrips can be a major problem so I give each plant a squirt with Dynamec, pulling apart the inner central growth and forcing the spray into the gaps and creases which is where the little sods lurk. They nibble newly emerging leaves and these nibbles get bigger as the leaf expands and reduce the photosyntetic area available to the plant, thus reducing the potential size of our bulb, not to mention allowing easy passage to the plant for various diseases and fungal infections. Spraying generally over the outer foliage will have no effect on thrip whatsoever.


I think I may have overdone it on the onion set front. I have nearly 200 'Setton' to plant out and as yet I have no idea where i'm going to grow them all. One thing is for sure though...they need planting soon!

One unfortunate side-problem I find associated with using dried blood are foxes walking over your raised beds sniffing out what they think is a dead carcass. I hate foxes. Might have mentioned that before.

And the garden clearance is progressing slowly. I shall be growing potatoes in the newly acquired ground that is currently under the tarpaulin, potatoes being very good for breaking up virgin ground of course. A few weeks ago this was a shrub jungle and whilst I started off in two minds about pulling up expensive plants that I'd collected and nurtured from nearly 20 years ago before I got into veg in a big way, it has proved to be quite an emancipating experience. I can now see new opportunites to grow even more veg at home appearing before my very eyes. It's certainly easier to rotovate a large expanse of ground rather than mowing intricate lawn shapes, edging them, pruning and tying in a load of plants that you can't actually eat! I shall cut back more shrubs in the next few weeks and move the tarpaulin up so that it remains there all Summer, so that all weeds and grass are killed off before working the soil during the Winter.

Meanwhile, I have asked Oscar whether he was feeling at all guilty about giving grandad his satanic tummy bug and sending him very close to Death.........

.....nuff said! I'll suffer any amount of toxic bum juice for a smile like that!