11 Apr - Carrots and Beetroot

The weather has been pretty good the past few days and the soil has warmed up. My early potatoes continue to sprout rapidly so I've been earthing them up to avoid any frost damage though it's been above above freezing for a while now.

I decided to put some carrots on the plot this week. My clay soil is awful for carrots and I seldom get anything worth shouting about. This year I wanted to try a different method so, to start with, I've bought some decent carrot seed. The seed is Sweet Candle F1, a blunt ended carrot that can win a vegetable show and will still taste great on the the plate.

To try and overcome the problem of a heavy soil I have used a bar to create a decent size conical hole, a few inches apart. I'm not sure how deep the holes should be so I hammered the bar into the ground around a foot and a half deep, the depth of my top soil before it starts to go to clay.

To half a bucket of light compost I added a couple of trowels of sharp sand to aid drainage and some general fertilizer. After a really good stir I back-filled the holes with the mix, effectively creating growing tubes. On top if each position I sowed three Sweet Candle seeds and will reduce to one plant. If germination is poor I'll re-show with more seed. No idea if this will work but the results will be seen later in the year. As a comparison I also created a dozen newspaper tubes, filled them with the same compost and sowed with the same seed. I'll plant each tube, paper and all, when they sprout.

Along side the carrots I prepared another strip by forking over and raking the soil to a decent tilth. While I'm not a great beetroot fan, I do like pickled beetroot, especially at Christmas. I sowed a row of Detroit beetroot and intend to pick them relatively small though last year I forgot about them and they became too large and woody - I still pickled and ate them though.

Bye for now ...

04 Apr - Growing Update

It's been around 10 days since my last post and that was a link to my monthly video so I thought it about time I posted a few pictures of what's going on in the green house.

The Primo II summer cabbages are looking good. These were sown on 9th March and were thinned to one per module. They will probably be potted on again and will be planted out sometime in May.

I also sowed a few Kohl Rabi (Korfu F1) and red cabbage (Ruby Ball) on the same date and again these are doing well. I've only got a few of each as we only use red cabbage in the odd summer salad and I want successional sowings of Kohl Rabi.

I've transplanted the largest lettuce plants (Iceberg) into individual small pots to grow on for a few more weeks. These will probably go out into the plot by the end of this month if the weather is kind. I've also sown a few modules of red Lollo Rossa this week for some extra choice.

I find peppers develop slowly - I sowed a load of bell peppers in February and despite a heated propagator they took nearly 20 days to germinate and it's only now they are beginning to develop their first 'true' leaves. They have already been potted on into individual small pots. On the other hand the tomatoes are looking very good indeed. This is the first time I've sowed them in February (17th) using heat and they are really enjoying the spring sunshine in the greenhouse. I normally sow them in mid-March so this year I'm a little ahead.

The leeks are putting on a few more leaves after being transplanted to their deeper tray though I will have to watch the heat in the greenhouse as I find that they do much better outdoors in their tray once the weather warms up a little. They won't go into the plot until mid-June.

On the plot itself things are slowly developing too. There are green sprouts on a load of the onions and I've had to take the plastic cover off my early potato bed and earth them up as the odd one was poking through. They should be fine for another few weeks now. Lastly a picture of the broad beans and garlic; both are really coming on too. The garlic, having been planted in November, looked a bit winter-worn but after a feed with a general fertilizer and a bit of sun, new growth is to be seen. The large temporary cloche has been on and off the broad beans but, given the lack of frost, I've decided to leave it off now unless there is a specific frost warning for my area. That's it for now - the next few weeks will see another busy time of sowing.