Especially for the CBC boys etc.....

I'm getting it in the neck from certain quarters for not having said anything remotely controversial on here for some time ................so here goes............


I've not seen this year's Big Brother..............I don't intend to. But I can safely say that all of the contestants should be skewered through their eyeballs with Samurai swords and that anyone who watches the programme should be instantly committed to the nearest nuthouse.

I feel better for that!

Shallot harvesting time

It will soon be time to harvest your shallots and indeed I put the first pot into my greenhouse last night. This contained the two biggest ones as I want some others to catch up. The idea is that you don’t let any water get at them from the first week or so in June so if heavy rain is forecast you need to lift them. They should have done most of their growing by now so you don’t want a sudden influx of water making them put on secondary growth and going out of shape. I will leave them in their pots on the greenhouse benching so that they dry out naturally.

I see on Liam’s blog that he’s already harvested some monsters, but mine went in a little later than usual this year. Everyone is different in the way they do things but I think my way will stop me having thick necks on my bulbs. Also, by parting the two shallots when the foliage dies back it gives the bulb a more even, rounded shape. At then end of the month I will empty the pots, cut the necks back to leave 2” or so, cut off the roots, peel off all loose skins and store the bulbs upright in boxes of sawdust. One evening I will grade all my shallots into separate boxes depending on size…….over 30mm dia. for the large shallot classes, 25mm-30mm dia. for shows under RHS rules and under 25mm for shows being judged to NVS rules.

I was glad to see that when I lifted the first pot last night there were plenty of roots coming out of the bottom of the pot that had been going into the soil. I shall persevere with the method next season as I’m definitely making progress on size and form.

Cabbages and Kings

I've always grown good cabbages but if I'm honest there isn't the same 'kudos' attached to growing them as there is say, onions, leeks, carrots, celery, caulis etc. This year I said I wasn't going to grow so many but I changed my mind at the last moment when it came to composting the last few seedlings....I potted them on instead! (GROOOOOAN!)

Ah well. They're now all planted and growing away strongly with protective green netting around them. I find this stops the pigeons landing and nibbling them in the early days as they don't like to have anything above or around them if they have to make a swift takeoff....usually when I'm running down the garden throwing stones at them! It also filters any strong winds that can catch the large leaves and spin them round causing breakages. The variety in the pic is Globemaster with a couple of plants of Abacus brussel in the foreground.

Skiddaw 31st May 2008

Sharp Edge, Blencathra in the background.......we nailed that too!

Bulging greenhouse

I only have two small (8'x6') greenhouses and I'm constantly having to rearrange pots and trays at this time of year to get the most of my limited shelving. Most of them now need putting outside to harden off but I'm still sowing runner beans, cucumbers, marrows, lettuce and caulis as I want all my veg to be ready from late August to early October.

The large pots on the shelves contain aubergines. I tried growing these last year without agreat deal of success so I'm having another go. I've planted them on a mound of compost as I read that they don't like to have their roots too wet, and planting this way allows excess water to run off.

At the back of the staging are my dahlia cuttings rooting (hopefully) in mini-cloches of cut off lemonade bottles. I managed to pot on the first of my successfully rooted cuttings of Emma's Coronet and Kenora Sunset yesterday, with several more to follow in the next few days (time allowing).

In fact the next few days are going to be a bit manic.....I need to support my leek foliage with a bamboo frame, pot on the first of my caulis, plant more spuds (Malin), plant my gladioli (yes I know they're a bit late but they always flower early for me if planted in May!), thin out my carrots etc etc etc. I really need to win the lottery so I can retire early!

The engine room!

This randomly manufactured wooden box on an untidy, overgrown patch of land in the lane at the bottom of my garden is now producing some lovely black compost from the bottom. At the moment I’m using it to fill my large pots and tubs and topping off with bought compost. All our kitchen vegetable waste goes into the top of this bin except potato peelings which I find tend to root and grow. I also put on old teabags and crushed eggshells as well as fleshy garden waste (not perennial weed roots) and the odd layer of grass clippings. I find I don’t have to turn it over and it all rots down quite nicely in about a year, and by taking off the top plank at the front and wedging the others up I can dig out the good stuff from the bottom. I’m going to make a second bin so that I can empty the unrotted stuff from the top of the 1st into it and get all of the good stuff from the bottom easier.

Darling buds of May!

Just had to post a picture of my wisteria in full flower. I prune it very carefully in January leaving the best flower buds and cutting back all the ‘whippy’ shoots to 2 buds, whilst training it along some metal supports. Every year seems to be better than last……sometimes I think I’m not bad at this gardening lark !

Parsnips progressing nicely

Whilst my carrots have been causing me concern there appear to be no such problems (as yet!) with my parsnips growing in drums. I noticed a single greenfly at the weekend so gave all the plants a quick zap with some ‘Have that you little b*st*rds-icide’. Apart from the water that falls from the sky they won’t be watered from now on to encourage the tap root to go straight down in search of moisture. There should be enough feed in the bore hole mix to see them through the season.

Celery planted

I don't grow many celery plants as I only enter one show where there is a specific class for it but I do enter where there is a class for 'Any other Veg'.

I really piled in the well rotted horse muck into this bed in the Spring and put some sterilised soil over that so I’m hoping to get a decent entry or two this season. The plants were planted at the weekend about 12” apart and given a good drenching. Celery is a bog plant in the wild so they are very thirsty. I also scattered a handful of slug pellets as slugs love the lush hearts of a young celery plant and can help to introduce all sorts of problems such as celery heart rot. To combat the latter problem I will also feed regularly with a solution of calcium nitrate to harden up the soft centres.


I won’t collar tightly until 4 weeks or so before the show as this can induce heart rot as the plant sweats in hot weather. However, I’ll probably put a loose collar on just to induce the plant to grow upwards. I’ve never won a celery class so along with cauliflowers (my other weak point) I’m going all out to try and grow celery to the best of my capabilities this season.

Shallots 'clicked'

After some doubts my shallots seemed to have grown quite well after thinning and are ripening and swelling nicely after a potash feed 3 weeks ago. One task I performed yesterday was to carefully part the two shallots in each pot until you hear a 'click' as the piece of base plate joining them snaps. If you don't do this they develop flat sides as they touch each other. By parting them this way (and it does have to be done gently) they will now develop a more rounded shape before harvesting towards the end of June.

Carrot conundrum

All of my long carrots are through ! I’ve never known such erratic germination in carrots (it’s taken 3 weeks) as I’ve experienced this season and it appears from chatting to them that other growers are suffering the same problem. It just shows you need to be patient in gardening as I’ve come close several times to scrapping the top layer of compost in the stations that hadn’t germinated and putting some long beetroot seeds in instead. Usually Spring Bank Holiday weekend is when I thin my long carrots down but they’re mostly far too small for that just yet. Hopefully, they’ll get a shift on and catch up and I’ll still be able to exhibit some reasonable roots come August/September.

I’ve not been able to get all my spuds in yet…..I still have a tray of Malin to set out but hope to do that this weekend in pots of sieved peat. My first potatoes (Kestrel) suffered a bit of frost damage last week (I should’ve watched the weather forecast!) but they’ll recover. So far my onions are growing away reasonably well. The biggest problem is making sure they grow upright as the weight of the leaves tends to pull them over to one side or other and if you leave them they won’t grow symmetrically. I use bent aluminium wires to support the leaves in the positions I need.

I’ve planted out one pumpkin plant cloaked in some bubble wrap until it has been acclimatised to the outside. I just couldn’t resist having another crack at growing a ‘biggie’!

This weekend I’ll be sowing another row of beetroot as well as the first of my caulis, as well as planting my gladioli corms. I’ve taken plenty of dahlia cuttings but none appear to have rooted yet. There’s a lot of hard work to do in the next few weeks but as my team are now officially the best team in Europe I shall do each and every task with a smile and a skip…..chaaaaaaaaaaampiooooooooooons! John Terry you big ponce…..call yourself a hard man?

Kings of Europe

I have a very, very, very sore head!

And thanks to those lazy french fishermen I now have to collect my daughter from her school trip to France at 2am tomorrow morning. If it aint the fishermen it's the air traffic controllers or the farmers. Her trip has been completely ruined so thanks for that you pox riddled, garlic smelling, back-tracking bunch of french arse wipes.

Update

It’s getting a bit exciting now….5 days to the Champions League Final……c’mon you reds!

I wish things were a little more exciting in the veg garden. My re-sown long carrots have come through very sparse and patchy so that’s one crop I may well be struggling with this season. My first batch didn’t germinate because of the cold nights in early April and this second batch struggled because of the heat as I couldn’t keep the surface of the sand permanently moist. Out of 46 ‘stations’ only about 25 or so have come through so far. I lost 3 of my leeks to some strange little maggots that were eating away below soil level but the rest appear to be growing away quite strongly.

On the plus side all of my stump rooted carrots (Sweet Candle) came through in the first two beds and a 3rd bed I sowed last weekend should be through soon. My onions growing in the greenhouse borders look healthy enough and are starting to swell. The pots of shallots that I reduced to two are swelling and ripening nicely after a potash feed. All my other crops (cabbages, celery, tomatoes, brussels, peppers, runner beans, potatoes, parsnips) are pretty much where I’d expect them to be.

The next few weeks will be very busy as I try to get everything hardened off and planted.

Chaaaaaaaaaaampioooooooons!

Almost as good as pulling a perfect carrot!

Long carrots re-sown

Due to the sparse and sporadic germination of my long carrots I bit the bullet yesterday and re-sowed the whole damn lot. Several stations hadn't come through at all and those that had looked very weak and uninspiring. I think the batch of seed (from a friend) may have been a bit iffy even though he has won awards at National level, or else the cold nights just after sowing 3 weeks ago caused the majority of the seed to fail. Whatever, it's done now but I have lost 3 weeks growing time from the season. Hopefully, the fresh batch of seed will germinate very quickly and make up for any lost ground.

Everything else is pretty much as it should be. I planted my red and green cabbages (Maestro & Globemaster) outside yesterday as well as a couple of brussel sprout plants (Abacus). I potted on a dozen celery plants (Morning Star) as they had outgrown their small cell trays and these won't get planted out until the end of May.

Today I planted my first 7 tomato plants (Cederico) in the greenhouse border, and sowed the first batch of runner beans (Enorma).

Tomorrow I'll plant another 18 bags of potatoes (Nadine) and try and get another 50 or so stations of stump rooted carrots in. However, to do that I'll need to sieve about 40 lites of compost to get all the lumps out.....you wouldn't believe the amount of crap that the manufacturers put into their bags until you separate it out.