15 Jan - Snow & Chitting

Like many parts of the country, we had a dusting of snow here in South Wales. It was the first snow of the Winter but all trace had disappeared by lunch time as heavy rain melted it away.

I'm at the plot first thing every morning and evening to let the hens in and out so, come rain, shine (or even snow), I get to see the allotment throughout the seasons. I suppose this is a little unusual as some of my plot neighbours only see the site in the growing season, they arrive in April and are gone by the end of September as many don't bother with Winter crops. The hens were a little bemused with the snow - probably the first they have ever seen.

I've done a bit more shopping since I posted my seed list. I've ended up buying 60 tubers of the early potato 'Rocket' and 26 tubers of the second early 'Maris Peer'. I was going to go with Kestrel instead of the Maris Peer but my local store didn't have them in stock and there seemed little point in especially ordering them as I've never grown second early before so I wasn't going to be choosy.

I've taken the early spuds out of their net bags and have laid them in seed trays, 'eyes' up for chitting. Chitting does seem to get them away a bit better. The 'chits' are the shoots of the potato and not the roots so they need to be left in a light, frost free place until planting in late March-April. As I have more space this season I'm going for a full bed of early potatoes hence the second earlies for the first time. My main crop Sarpo Mira are on order from Thompson Morgan as they had a good offer on them and I couldn't source them locally at a reasonable price.

I've also purchased my main onions, I'm staying with 'Sturon' as they usually do very well for me. I've also got some garlic, the variety is 'Germidour' which according to the seed catalogues is large bulbed with a mild but rich flavour. Though French, it's supposed to be well suited to our climate. I'll be planting the cloves out in late February to early March in the hope they will get a bit of frost. I Autumn planted last season but they suffered badly from rust due to the wet Winter so I'm trying Spring planting to see if there is an improvement.

I think I basically have everything now (or it's on order) for the upcoming season. I look forward to un-boxing the heated propagator in the coming weeks and sowing can begin. Bye for now.