Veg4Show

All my onions in the pots have been hardening off inside the tunnel now for 2 weeks and at the weekend got planted into the beds. I am using under soil seep hoses so I can keep the top surface as dry as I like.

My Peter Clarke leeks are still small, as stated I got these in late February and have been growing them on in natural day light.

Few pictures of where my parsnip and carrots are at:
(sorry pictures taken late evening).

Remember to watch out for aphids, I would say "at this time of year" but that doesnt apply to me as Ive had them all year.

No picture but I'm very impressed with my sweet candle stump carrots, Every seed germinated except one station and to be honest I reckon I forgot to sow that one. The blue casing that aids germination really has done the trick, well done Medwyn.

Good news all my stump carrots have come up, except 20 on the far side that I sowed 3 days later as I ran out of mix, hopefully they will also be up in a few days time.

I have now replaced the poythene sheet with fleece, I also have thrown a few slug pellets down as I found the odd snail about.

The only slight bad news is; the one long carrot pipe that did not germinate has still not come up, so I have re sown that one. Also one station had some poor looking carrot in it, so I also had to re-sow that one.

All in all its about time my carrots actually got off to a good start and I'm pretty happy that they will now be good speciems.

My first 20 cauliflowers were sown today, 10 concept and 10 Dok Elgon. I will continue to sow 10 of each for the next month or so. I grew Dok Elgon 3 years ago and it was the best cauliflower I had ever grown producing large tight heads, massive leaves and was a fast grower even in poor ground. For some reason I have never been able to get hold of it again but I managed to get it this year, not 100% if its the same or a modified version, will soon find out.

Been busy sorting out my onions in the hope I will put them inside the tunnel to harden off end of April start of may. I like to leave mine inside the greenhouse with a minium night temperature of 50f, this time of year it's easy to maintain 60f. I will move them inside the tunnel and leave them in the pots for at least 2 weeks before I plant them in the beds. I have to say they are looking great, even tho I always worry about my onions they are probably the best I have had for some years growing on normal daylight.

The beds inside the tunnel are complete but the soil test was not great. I really have left it late to get them up to scratch and have no choice but to adjust the nutrient levels with just fertilizers, adding manure after the onions come off will improve it for next year. Always remember to do a soil conductivity test if you are adding manure to beds if you are growing inside, you will probably find it is very high if you have manured every year, a common mistake.

Picture update here soon.

More good news, all my carrot stations inside are up except one, Finally it looks like my long carrots will get off to a good start this year.

Had another 90 tons of manure delivered this weekend, kinda hoping the tractor parts turn up this week so I can get it shifted about.

My turkeys for Christmas will soon be here (3-4 weeks) so I will probably spend the next month sorting out there home, so veg may well take a back seat.

The next major task is potatoes and this weekend I will be sowing my first cauliflowers. I'm leaving 5-6 weeks for growth in the pot while in the greenhouse and 90-110 days maturing after I plant them out. I will probably sow 10 sowings in all in the next month or so every 10 days. Last year I was probably about a week out on each sowing so slightly earlier this year.

I do around 50 baskets a year now and I always keep a few baskets of Nasturtions inside my green house as they smell so nice and I can eat them if I get hungry on the go.

Most of my flower plants are now inside my tunnel and have all been potted up into 5 inch pots, glad to get rid of them..most are orders and I suppose I have about 650 plants in 5 inch pots at the moment, some are stored at my friends large tunnel which is handy.

Also you can see my long carrot pipes and today I noticed the first signs of them popping through the surface to my relief.

I'm glad I did all my Fuschia cuttings last year as I now have loads of decent healthy plants, infact they are taking over so will be glad when they are outside. I also got a few standards out of them which is nice.

As you can see I'm still messing about with this tunnel and I'm yet to finish it...one day.

Well as i mentioned before all of my Medwyns leeks grow well but still I had the same fungal problem as last year. Well these are the Peter Clarke leeks that I have been growing on since Late February and even tho they are small I might at least get something.

I potted these up a few days ago into 5 inch pots.

I have been so busy I really haven't had the time to do anything let alone post on this blog. As you can see I am behind again and have 90 ton of manure to shift about, even tho its late this stuff is like compost so I'm sure it will be fine.

I havent managed to get on this because my tractor is out of use at the moment after a strip down due to a hole in the water manifold. Also found it needed a new head gasket and all the injector screws are naff.

Not 100% sure about my onions, some I'm suspicious of when I look at the necks worring about if they are going to go double on me. I always worry about onions, I spend a fortune on growing them what with the heating so I hope they are ok.

Parsnips are growing away nicely now and it really is surprising how fast they grow inside a tunnel. Very even germination as always, every station through on the same day except one that came up a day later.

Here's hoping I get some decent seed from my carrots that I put back last year. I have been trying to slow them down as I felt they were producing the heads to soon.

Few onion sets that I put in some time ago are now starting to grow well.

This picture shows the stump carrot bed last weekend, it is now finished and my carrots were sown a few days ago..They wont germinate I pretty much know this for a fact and I will be swearing on here in a few weeks time about it.

I think i have 60 carrots in this bed with a path near the middle so I can have some access to water and check things over. Also because they are in a shady position (shed and hedge) I need to space them out in the hope of giving them some more light.

Most of my sweet peas are now planted out and should make a good display if I have time to look after them.

My sowing of tomatoes, much later than last year as I'm hoping I can at least pick some from the bottom this year for show which is normally where the best tomatoes come from.

The show shallots have been planted out now for a week and have taken well. Normally they are only in the ground for a month before they require thinning.