Veg4Show

My onions are still growing which is good news, never get your hopes up tho as they go from great to disaster so quick. What happens, happens, all I can do is look after them as best I can.

I have been spraying with SB Invigorator, seems to do a good job.

Update on my carrots, all looking good..no problems so far. Managed to get a picture of my stumps aswell, only half of them as I couldnt be bothered to take off all the fleece.

Some pictures of my leeks planted last Friday. They are covered in fleece to ensure they don't get any sun damage on the flags. The 10% light drop is well worth it, having clean undamaged leeks is going to be key this year as size wise they won't be massive.

Heres also a picture of yet again more baskets inside this tunnel.

Most of my shallots have now been thinned, 4 per plant. You will know when they are ready when they have naturally split away and when pulled sideways come away very easy.
Don't force them out, wait a few more days as you will damage and rock the main root plate. Always thin bearing in mind space, you want evenly spaced bulbs and I always remove the center bulb which creates that natural gap for extra room. Pot any thinnings up that still have some root into 3 inch pots using a low nutrient compost such as old USED carrot/parsnip mix or john innes no.1 water and leave them to it. These will make great pickling shallots for showing so keep an eye on them size wise, measure every day twice when you think they are nearlly ready, size depending on show schedule.

I hope by next weekend I will posting a picture here of my potatoes planted as it seems to be taking forever. I have prepared 15 bags and I hope to finish at least another 15 this week.

I am determined this year to grow decent potatoes so have gone the extra mile and have really finely sieved the peat, and I mean fine. I always do everything right with potatoes except look after them, so I will spend more time on them this year by ensuring I have halm supports, water well and try to keep the blight off.

Good potatoes get good points and this is where I lost out quite a lot last year. I hate growing potatoes, so much work and then they get blight and even when they are ready you don't actually know for sure unless you tip a few bags out, rendering them useless for show as you need to leave them at least 2 weeks in the bags to set the skins.

The cost is painful, 1x100ltr bale of peat is £7 and this makes me; 3, maximum 3 ½; 17 ltr polypots. Thats almost half a bag of crap and lumps that cant be used in the bags. Note I whack the bags down to ensure they are actually full as they sink and compact after a while, otherwise this would make 6 unwhacked bags lol. I hope to get at least 50 bags done, but then again I change my mind a lot these days.