End of April.

With the end of April being something of a wash out I took the time to review my progress in the garden. To start with I have started my tomatoes way to early they are in the greenhouse now but are so far ahead that I am worried their season will be over before show time. My parsnips have just poked there heads out of the soil in the long veg bed. This is brilliant for me as I have had no success with parsnips in the past, that's why I decided to bite the bullet and go the whole hog to set up a deep bed of sand to grow them in.

Parsnip Seedlings

My early potatoes have survived late night skirmishes by our local badger and are now pushing out from their muddy homes. I planted these two weeks behind everyone around me and I now seem to be catching up. So if you do find yourself having to delay sowing / planting don't worry to much as the temperature increases so does the veg growth rate so there won't be to much of a difference. Although it should be mentioned it doesn't feel that way when you are looking at your neighbours big healthy seedlings when yours are just getting started but patience is a virtue and you will get there.

Potato shoots.

I planted up my chilli's and peppers today, they are currently under the light in the loft but in around a couple of weeks I will take them to the greenhouse. I recently asked a question on the NVS forum about tips for growing them for showing but the information is pretty thin on the ground. Does anybody know of a font of knowledge on the subject of capsicums? I think i have sown my cedrico tomatoes way to early the plants are massive and I am being forced into risking them in the greenhouse!

Chilli's & Peppers on the loft

Boring!!!

I have just finished the coring of my stump rooted carrots and my parsnips in the taller bed. What a time consuming process that was. The hardest part was sieving the bags of peat ,soil and sand as well as granulating the calcified seaweed. Saying that what a lovely texture the final growing medium was I think next year I will try to buy the composts etc. a bit earlier and prepare everything in the winter whan theres less to do. Filling the two beds for a total of 72 core holes has cost around £150 in total. this is alot of money however I will save £120 of this next year as I have the sand for a few years now. Obviously this is very expensive for the sake of vegetables showing however if you still fancy a go and don't have the cash then I have had success with coring straight into the soil in the garden and filling these with sieved compost. This does give results however so carrots / parsnips did tend to fork (produce more than one taproot). The number of these crops you grow more than makes up for the few loses.

Seiving the peat

Stump carrot cores.