Update

Finding enough time in April is about as difficult as finding a catholic priest who doesn't fiddle with choirboys. It is by far the busiest time of the year for me as I have to get my parsnips, carrots and spuds in, as well as sowing a multitude of other crops.

Last weekend was a good one weatherwise and I managed to sow nearly 90 stump carrot stations (variety Sweet Candle). The past few nights have seen me shovelling a tonne of new sand into 3 new drums in which I intend to sow my long carrots this weekend. I have been lucky enough to beg some seed from Scottish Champion Ian Stocks so if I don't get some major roots this season (after a few years of relative disappointment) I shall be rebuilding Hadrian's Wall!

My mix for both long and short carrots this season has been:

15litres sieved compost
4 litres vermiculite
4 litres sieved sand
2 oz Vitax Q4
2 oz superphosphates
2 oz potash
1 oz seaweed meal
1 oz lime

This did me about 20 stump carrot stations, and should do about 10 long carrots, so you can see how many times I have to repeat this for 90 stumps and the 50 or so long carrots that I intend to do this weekend. I mix the compost and vermiculite well first, before adding the nutrients that have been thoroughly sieved to make sure there are absolutely no large lumps that could burn the skins. Once this has also been well mixed I add the heavier sand at the end and mix again. I do all this by hand but for speed I am going to have to invest in a cement mixer as I do more and more each year. I am not getting any younger. Devilishly more handsome yes.....but younger no.

Monster man

We had a fabulous talk tonight at our hort.soc. given by Clive Bevan, grower of giant veg. He's a real character and he told us some crazy stories such as the time he had to have a crane to lift some 120lb cabbages in pots over his house. A top tip which I'm happy to pass on is to use 3" pieces of rhubarb in your planting holes for things like cabbages and caulis, and in long strips alongside your rows of carrots and parsnips. As he said, he knows of no other animal, pest or beast that eats rhubarb apart from humans. When it breaks down in the soil the acid juices are released and sterilises the soil around the root ball. In turn the plants suck up the juices and become impregnated against attack by pest and disease. I shall certainly be giving it a go this season.

Another thing he was passionate about, and which I fully echo is the need to grab hold of new exhibitors at shows. He told the story of his first show when his onions 'shown as grown' were disqualified because he cleaned them up to much. Another grower approached him after judging and told him he knew he would get disqualified. As Clive said why couldn't he have told him that before judging as he could have popped home and got another set that would have won. The other grower said he wouldn't have done that as he wanted the red card. Clive duly looked him in the eye and said 'well you won't bloody well win the red card next year!' At the following year's show he duly swept the board.

The point here is that we all need to keep an eye out for new showers and guide them in the right direction if we see them looking unsure, confused or doing things that may get them given the dreaded 'NAS' card. So what if they may beat us in the process? We all want the show to carry on don't we? Too many village shows are falling by the wayside through lack of exhibitors and we all have to do our bit if we want them to carry on.....and that means passing on the tips we've learnt over the years.

Cheating German bastards!

Bleeding typical. Those smelly krauts were diving around tonight like downed Messerschmitts and kicking Rooney on his bad ankle. It has not been a good day. I had several cabbages sheared off overnight in the greenhouse by a rogue slug and my parsnips are coming through in a very patchy manner. 20 have shown through in all but they aren't coming through in the sequence they were sown (as chitted seeds) as I would expect...... which makes me worry I may have lost some. We shall see.

Anyhow, Man Utd can now concentrate on winning the League although we will now have to rely on that very fine Liverpool side doing us a huge favour by beating Chelsea in a few weeks time. Come on Mr. Gerrard. What a player. I've always had the greatest of respect for him.

So there you have it. Smithyveg. The country's most mediocre show grower and probably the World's most two-faced man.

A week off.....

....so I've been catching up on the preparation of the plot and assessing where things are at. My first sowing of tomatoes Cedrico have been pricked out but these cold blasts we are currently experiencing mean they are confined to the conservatory for now.



I have had one parsnip pop through in the drums so the rest surely cannot be too far behind.



My Pendle leeks are not too bad, about the thickness of my thumb and a couple of foot high stretched out.



My shallots made good top growth eventually, but it was by far the latest I've ever experienced. I have been hardening them off during the day but bringing them back into the greenhouse during the night. I shall be planting these next week as soon as the weather improves.

This is the bed where the leeks and biggest shallots will be planted. I spread a full box of blood, fish and bone across the middle where the leeks will be planted and also several handfuls of seaweed meal for added nitrogen.

With an eye to a show in mid-July I have got these broad beans popping through now.

This old galvanised water tank has served me for several years as a water storage tank for my greenhouses, but has now sprung a leak. I drilled a few more large holes in the bottom, lined it with a couple of inches of broken crock and brick, and am now in the process of filling it with decent soil. The top few inches will be a mix of bagged sieved topsoil and sand.....more on my intentions for this in the coming weeks. All I'll say for now is .......Malvern!

As an experiment I've sown this old kitchen swing bin with some carrot seed 'early Nantes', as well as some old foot long sections of drainpipe set into the greenhouse border soil. I'm hoping to be able to get a set of 3 carrots for the same show in July that I've already mentioned. I sieved some compost and sand, well mixed in with some vermiculite, a handful of superphosphates, Vitax Q4, seaweed meal, lime and potash. They'll stay in the greenhouse until harvesting. These don't have to be top quality as it's only a small village show. If it doesn't work out I won't have wasted much time

One final thing, as the author of a blog where I try to wind up certain sections of mankind I've always been prepared for the moment one day, when someone walks up to me and, without warning, knocks me out...probably a Liverpool fan or an organic gardener or an animal rights activist. If you ever see me at a show lying unconscious on the floor you will therefore probably be able to guess what has occurred. So it was with some not inconsiderable trepidation of the arse-twitching variety that I was approached at the NVS North Mids District Association meeting the other night by an absolutely huge bear of a man who put his hands on my shoulders and asked me "Simon? Simon Smithyveg?" Just as I was expecting him to announce that he was Peter Snazell's brother, or the President of the Steven Gerrard Fan Club or the secret love child of Gordon Brown's mum, and as I was wishing I'd worn the brown underpants he said to me, "I read your blog and it's a cracking read", and he then proceeded to show me a Liverpool joke on his mobile phone. With that one act alone he quickly became one of my best mates! He also had some cracking advice on growing big onions which I'll reserve for next season. Cheers Bob!

Spud prep

It's not yet time to be planting up your spud bags but you can be digging trenches, sieving your peat/compost and making sure you have plenty of Vitax Q4 and Seaweed meal to hand. This little sketch illustrates how I do it. I know Sherie Plumb mixes her nutrients and compost alltogether but I confine the nutrients to the bottom layer only, below where the new spuds will be developing. As I use Vitaz Q4 pellets rather than the finer ground stuff I cannot risk them coming into contact with the skins on the developing tubers and scorching them. Just a personal method but it worked for me very well last season. I shall be doing one or two things differently however, more on this in mid-April.

Fertilisers

I'm at risk of becoming Dave Thornton's groupie as I attended another lecture given by him on fertilisers on Monday night. It's a heavy subject but I'd recommend you attend such a talk if you get the chance so that you can better understand your plants needs. Again, I shall be divulging as much as I can about what I learnt over the coming weeks and months but for now it's important you get any fertilizers onto your beds at least 2 weeks before you plant or sow. A good compound fertiliser with equal NPK is as good as anything for now but you may want to consider applying extra nitrogen. Dave felt that we amateur gardeners don't pay enough attention to nitrogen depletion in the soil, as it's the one ingredient that gets leached out of the soil during winter and which is most easily taken up by plants. Plants requiring a lot of nitrogen will need much more than others....things like cabbages, brussels, celery and leeks. A surprising veg that also needs a lot of 'N' is beetroot.

Like I said, more on this subject soon. At the weekend we went away for a short break in Norfolk but whilst I was there I took the opportunity of visiting the garden of Trevor Last in Norwich. If Andrew Jones, Sherie Plumb and John Branham are (in no particular order) the Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal of veg showing then Trevor is the very highly respected Everton, always capable of getting a result. He specialises in long carrots, parsnips and celery these days. I was gratified to see that he wasn't that far advanced in his preparation, although his parsnips, growing under enviromesh and polythene covers were about an inch high. When we returned on Monday afternoon the first of my parsnips had pushed through the compost surface. His onions were on a par with mine but his leeks were probably an inch in diameter which is pretty awesome at this time of year.

Prat!

My gander has been well and truly got by a letter in this week's GN by some no mark called Peter Snazell for a totally ridiculous attack on the NVS. The letter in full reads:

"I decided to join the NVS after finding lots of useful information on their website (very true) . I wanted to grow vegetables that taste good, using organic (yawn!) , wildlife-friendly methods and thought the NVS would teach me more (it certainly can) .

However, I've since found out that the NVS seems to place its emphasis heavily on growing for showing (yeah....so?). Yet the idea of producing huge but tasteless crops, using synthetic chemicals to ensure blemish-free plants, seems pointless to me (your stupid beard seems pointless to me mate). And a look through the RHS Horticultural Show Handbook even tells me that cucumbers have to be green, so my 'Crystal Apple' fruits are no good, despite being the best tasting (taste is subjective mate...I bet your mum loves you but most people think you're a knob) .

There is a huge surge of interest in growing your own veg and if you look at the wide range of people using allotments you'll see an assortment of ages and cultural backgrounds (and I bet they all f***ing scatter when they see you coming!) . What they have in common (apart from thinking you're a prick you mean?) is a desire to cultivate tasty, healthy produce that they can enjoy at family mealtimes. Many of these growers would find the methods used by many exhibitors completely alien to them (asked them all have you? Twat!) .

Take for example, the onion growers who use concrete block beds, a 20ft greenhouse with constant temperature and artificial lighting (operating 24 hours a day), sodium lamps, heat blankets, gas boiler and electric fan system in their quest to produce onions up to 16lb. To me this is turning the joy of grow your own (GYO) gardening into an industrial complex, (it's called dedication actually you wanker) , to say nothing of the amount of energy that's being consumed (are we asking you to pay for it?) .

The majority of people dedicated to the GYO movement are not interested in this expensive, energy wasting (only energy wasting being done is by GN printing crap from tits like you) and synthetic way of growing. Weren't allotments and veg showing originally about encouraging working people to live and eat healthily? (they still f***ing were last time I looked!)

The objectives of the NVS include 'to advance the education of the public in the cultivation and improvement of vegetables'. Do you think that the public believe that producing longer carrots or bigger onions is improving vegetables? (course it twatting well is) Now celebrating its 50th year, the NVS should be looking to plug the increasing gap between growing to eat (for taste) and growing to show (for cosmetic size). (All show veg is perfectly edible you uninformed tosspot)

My village holds a produce show each August. However, every year it features the same names (good growers you mean?) , the same out of season exhibits (huh? They'd be f***ing daffodils I assume?) and yes, the same green cucumbers (what colour should they be then?) . Wouldn't it be good to see a class especially for organically grown veg? (ooo look Mildred...this bloke's grown wonderful fleabitten carrots) And for 'flavour' to be included on the judging criteria? (errr....no!)

Vegetable growing should be encouraged for the reasons that interest most vegetable growers (should it? I didn't realise we were living in a dictatorship) - making use of current trends, not past ideas. (Show growers are actually the most forward thinking and ingenious growers you'll find you arsehole) It's only when you have gained people's interest that you can lead them on to exhibiting. But please let's get back to the real roots of growing nutritious and tasty veg crops that grace our meal tables - rather than the show benches"

What an absolute unnecessary kick in the teeth to the NVS. This guy must be a right barrel of laughs down the pub of an evening. I for one know that the NVS is full of dedicated growers who bend over backwards to help the average grower and who help out in schools. This muppet misses the point entirely. The idea of a veg show is to put on a 'show' for the general public to marvel at. It is a marvellously British tradition that has been going on for 200 years. Who the f*ck would want to look at a bench full of scabby vegetables all cut to pieces in order for the judge to assess flavour. If it was a cookery demonstration fair enough but it aint. Snazell....feck off back into your organic orifice.

Top tips from a top bloke

I spent a very pleasant couple of hours tonight amongst like minded saddos at a talk given by NVS National Secretary Dave Thornton during which I copiously noted many cultural tips which I shall be divulging to all and sundry during the next few weeks. One point that did strike a cord is how Dave (and it follows most of us show growers if you think about it) do not actually practice crop rotation. We tend to grow our onions and leeks in polytunnels on the same patch of ground year in, year out. Similarly with tomatoes in the greenhouse border soil, runner beans on the same bean trench, celery in the same raised celery bed and so on. Dave felt that plants can develop a sort of symbiotic relationship with the soil if you give them the right conditions for that type of plant. You only need to rotate if you are forced to because of soil diseases.

Whilst I was there I also 'took delivery' of some runner bean seeds of the variety 'Blyton Sabre' which I grew last year and was without doubt the best bean I have ever grown. If I hadn't got swine flu at a critical time last year I feel sure I could have exhibited my best ever beans but by the time I recovered, bravely fighting my way back from Death's door like a Titan, the plants had run away from me and I was unable to bring them under control. Raised by Les Stothard, the legendary grower behind the Blyton Belle marrow I shall be giving this crop detailed attention this season.

On my own plot I have now placed chitted parsnip seeds to 21 bore holes (3 drums) with another 4 drums to go. The seeds are chitting fast and furious now, but I have noticed there does seem to be a lot less seeds in a packet this season so I'm only putting 2 seeds in each station, sometimes one if I only have an odd number chitted. I would prefer to put three in each but I'm sure they'll all come up.

First chitted parsnip seeds in!

I managed to sow 3 stations with chitted seeds today, two to each. This is 9 or so days later than last year but bearing in mind the recent cold weather it's to be expected. The rest of the stations (47 of them!) should get sorted within a few days as and when more chitted seeds become available in the tub.





You need to look at the parsnip seeds every few hours as once they're through the roots can grow very quickly. I like to get them in when they're no more than a millimetre long, placing them into the prepared bore hole very carefully with tweezers. This is probably a little too long but can still be done if you are very gentle.




I cover them over with 1/4" of compost, give them a watering and put a small pane of glass over to keep them moist. The leaves should be up in 12-15 days. A bigger sheet of glass is put over the drum to keep cats out....very important where I live.

It has been a lovely warm sunny day at last and I managed to get my wisteria pruned. Usually I do this in January. And a good day got even better as Man U beat Loserfools and Chelski could only draw. A 19th Championship is nigh!

Wankers!

Don't suppose any of you middle-class Scargills have heard of the terms 'recession' or 'I'm just glad to have a job when virtually every Company in the land is haemorrhaging money' perchance?

Other bits and bobs

I have a small pot of tiny celery seedlings (Evening Star) in need of pricking out. I also have some brussel sprout (Abacus), red cabbage (Red Drumhead) and green cabbage (Kilaton) all in need of pricking out. The green cabbage is for an early show in July for which I have also put some potatoes in large pots within a builders bucket in order to try and get an early crop. This is low key and low tech as I won't be too fussed if it doesn't come off. The buckets will be grown on the the greenhouse until the foliage is too big and then they'll be put outside hopefully when all risk of frost is past. I also hope to try and get some carrots on the go this coming weekend for the same show.

In the greenhouse my shallots have finally started to show green shoots and are therefore a good month behind where I'd expect them to be. At times the compost they've been sitting in has been frozen rock solid. I have several trays of onions from sets rooted but no tops showing (Red Baron & Setton) and have sown some broad beans (Bunyard's Exhibition). My Pendle leek plants are looking good and have grown since I potted them on, although the Metcalfe onions have struggled. I know I said to grow them as hard as possible but I think the weather of the last month was just too cold and next season I will have to invest in some form of indoor growing chamber under a fluorescent light or three! A dozen or so plants are gamely growing away but I'm just wondering whether they may go to seed during the summer because of the checks in growth. My Vento onions for the 250g class are also growing slowly but now seem to be perking up with the increased daylight hours and extra warmth.

In the house I have now sown my first batch of tomato seeds as well as some sweet peppers (Luteus). Another batch of Vento germinated yesterday.

End of Winter?

It always feels good to get the parsnips on the go and hopefully signals the end (at last!) of this long, cold winter we've had. The last few weeks have seen me getting the drums ready and after a couple of weeks of settling and topping up (you'll be surprised how much the level sinks) today I could start boring the holes.

I start by taking out a long plug of sand, up to 3', by plunging a length of plastic pipe about 3" dia. into the sand. By marking the pipe with a bit of tape I can make sure I take exactly the same amount of sand out of each 'station'.

The holes are then finished off with a crowbar taking great care that neighbouring holes do not distort by rotating the crow bar very slowly, to give me a long conical hole about 4" dia at the top.

The crowbar shown here is about 4' down into the sand

And so to the 'magic mix'. After mixed success last year when I increased the ratio of soil I've gone back to the mix that served me so well in 2008.

15 litres sieved compost

4 litres vermiculite

3 litres sieved soil

3 litres sieved sand

2 oz Vitax Q4

2 oz superphosphate

2 oz sulphate of potash

2 oz seaweed meal

2 oz lime

The nutrients are all sieved with a fine flour sieve and and bits that do not pass through even after grinding down are discarded. At a recent talk former National Champion (collection of 6) Mark Roberts felt that the skin could be scorched by large particles of things like the seaweed meal and so you had to make sure they were dust fine.

The compost, sand and soil (bagged sterilised topsoil) are passed through a 6mm sieve to get rid of any large lumps. I mixed all the lightweight ingredients first to make sure all the nutrients are evenly disributed before adding the sand and soil for a final mix together. This is what you are left with, and this amount was enough to give me 10.5 stations, so I will need to do this about 5 times to do all my drums.

The mix is then trickled into each hole, slowly at first to make sure it doesn't clog up near the bottom and cause an unfilled airlock below it. I used to prod the sand every now and then but Mark Roberts said he didn't do this so I've not bothered either. With the use of a metal funnel I was able to bomb through the first two drums in record time.

I do 7 'stations' in each drum. If I ever get to the stage where I'm only growing for National and regional NVS shows I would only do 3 or 4 in each drum as 7 is too many for top level growing, but I don't have this luxury yet. A pane of glass is put over each drum to keep cats off and that is it until the seed has chitted.


The seeds are on a warm windowsill between two sheets of damp paper towelling. These should start to sprout in a week or so and then I will place the seed in the drums, 2 per station. More on that later.

Top tip from the Macemaster

I went to a lecture given by top amateur grower Ivor Mace last night. Best known for his chrysanths and huge onions he's also been a national champion with carnations, roses and daffodils. One excellent tip I picked up was the way he mixes his potting mix for chrysanths and I shall be bearing it in mind this weekend when I do my parsnip mix. He recommended mixing the light ingredients first, such as the compost, vermiculite and the nutrients and getting them all thoroughly mixed before adding the heavier ingredients such as the soil (and sand in the case of parsnips). It certainly makes sense and should ensure a more even distribution of the nutrients.

A sunny day at last!!!

I managed to get the last of my parsnip drums filled today and gave the sand a good drenching with a strong bleach solution to kill off any overwintering disease spores or bugs lurking in the sand. I shall spend the evenings in the coming week sieving the compost and doing my mixes so that I can bore my holes next weekend. More on this in the week. Towards the end of next week I'll set some parsnip seeds on damp tissue paper ready to start them chitting.

I also hope to get some spuds in tomorrow but not in the ground as it's far too early. Instead I shall be putting them into a polypot set within a large bucket and start them off in my garage at first, then greenhouse when the first shoots emerge. This will make them fairly portable for a few weeks until they can be left outside. With this method I hope to have a set of 3 ready for an early show in July, which will take some doing as I shall probably only do 3 pots of Winston and 3 pots of Kestrel. The biggest problem will be supporting the foliage when it gets large so I'll have to poke some canes down the side of the bucket round which I shall wind some string. Should be an interesting experiment.



Last night we went to see the comedian Lee Mack in concert which was excellent. However, the warm-up Simon Evans gave me the biggest laugh with the following joke:

An englishman, a welshman and a pakistani were at the maternity hospital to collect their new baby sons. The matron met them at the door with the bad news that the babies had been mixed up and they couldn't be 100% certain which baby belonged to who. The 3 men had a meeting and decided to sort it amongst themselves amicably. The englishman went in first (as is his right!) and came out with what was quite obviously the pakistani baby. Turning to the pakistani man he said 'Sorry mate, but there's a welshman in there and I can't take the f***ing risk!"

More sowings....

...got a sowing of peppers on the go tonight. Some hot chilli peppers, 'Peach Habanero' which will hopefully be a welcome addition to my trugs, and a sweet pepper 'Luteus', a large blocky type which has performed well in the past for me.

My celery 'Evening Star' which I sowed over a week ago germinated today, but I'm still waiting for 'Kilaton' cabbage to pop through. I've sown this early in the hope of having some to exhibit at a show in early July. In the next couple of weeks I shall be sowing cucumbers, carrots, peas and spuds with a view to being able to exhibit at this very early show. I have a few ideas how to grow carrots and spuds this early...more on this in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, can anyone tell me why Frank Lampard plays so well for Chelsea, but plays like Frank Spencer for England?