This year I'm going to put all the show veg in one section.

The Show Onion section is in another bit.

So this year I'm growing specifically for show:

Long and Stump Carrots,Shallots,Potatoes,Parsnips and French Beans,plus I'm going to attempt to grow a 100lb+ Marrow as I've managed to get hold of some seed from last years 170 pounder that broke the British record,so that should be fun.

-----------------

Dec 6th.

Well,it all starts now.

One of the most tedious jobs is to prepare the Carrot & Parsnip Compost mixes ready for next year.

This involves sieving,In my case, 300 litres of multipurpose compost through a 6mm sieve.

This year I knocked up a sifting machine on wheels which made the job so much easier than using a small hand sieve as I've done in the past.

It's really important to sieve the compost or peat,and the topsoil if you use any as you can see how much rubbish is sieved out,and the last thing you want is to leave any of these big lumps in because if the tap root hits any of them it'll veer off and grow a bent carrot or it'll fork.

So,after a few hours I've got around 250 litres of sieved compost and around 100 litres of sieved topsoil.

So,I'll just bag this up and store it away ready for mixing into the final growing medium come April which will involve adding extra sand,vermiculite and other things.More info on that when the time comes.

Dec 28th.

I decided to plant my Shallots into pots today.

I was going to leave this until the 2nd-3rd week in January to try to miss any freezing cold weather which would mean that they would be sat in the pots just freezing as they did last year.

But as this unseasonably warm weather seems set to continue for another 2-3 weeks and also the added warmth has made a few of them sprout prematurely so I thought I may as well just get the job done.

This is the pretty poor selection of Hative de niort shallots that I have to plant.

Mine from last year all went soft bar 5 so I had to buy these from different sources.

The ones on the left were from a seller in Garden News which,although quite small,and a few sprouting seem to be a reasonable shape.

The ones on the right however are utterly abysmal,and these were purchased from a large online Seed Company.

Some of them don't even appear to be the right variety as I've never seen Hative de niort shallots that are such a flat shape.

Anyway I'll grow them and if they're rubbish I'll just eat 'em.

So armed with 63 bulbs of various qualities I just planted a single bulb in a 4" pot of compost,remembering to just basically sit the bulb on the surface in a small hollow rather than burying it half way as this is the way recommended by a certain National Shallot Champ.

This seems to make sense as the smallest amount of the bulb and old skin that's in contact with the soil,the less chance of any botrytis forming which is a big problem for me anyway,and there's no advantage in burying the bulb apart from stopping birds from pulling it out.

So that's 63 potted up,I'll just leave these in the Polytunnel and hopefully plant them out into the ground around late March/Early April.

Still can't believe I paid over £40 for this lot.....never again.

Jan 7th.

Well,after being stuck indoors for far too long over Xmas and due to the hideous weather I decided that today no matter what the weather I needed some fresh air and a bit of exercise.

So today I started to refill the carrot and parsnip barrels and boxes in the bloody rain !.

I've increased my growing capacity this year by making some more boxes and getting some new barrels to give me enough containers to grow 96 stump carrots,30 long carrots and 16 parsnips,so yet again I need to buy more sand to fill the extra barrels.

I've also increased the height of all my stump boxes to 2ft instead of the 18" last year and I've got some collars to fit onto the carrot drums to make them 4ft tall.

But to start off I just filled the containers about 2/3 full with 4 tonnes of last years sand that I'd dug out last Autumn and sterilized.

My thinking is that if there are any old carrot fly pupa lurking in last years sand that weren't killed of by the sterilization, then If I fill the containers to the top with another foot of new sterile stuff then this should stop them from pupating and emerging as adult flies as they'll have at least a foot of sand to crawl through.

So I have another 2 tonnes ordered which needs to be barrowed 200 yards across a muddy field to fill the containers up to the top.

Oh Joy !

Jan 11th.

Sand arrived today so I decided to take a day off and barrow it over the wet field in the rain.

As you can see the distance it all needs to be pushed.And by the end of it I'd ploughed a deep muddy road in the field.

Even the extra 2 tonnes of sand wasn't enough,6 tonnes in all and I still need another tonne to fill the two boxes in the tunnel and the extension collars on the barrels.

Bought myself an automatic wireless rain guage so I can tell how much it's rained even when I've not been up to the plot for several days.

Should come in quite handy to judge watering later on in the year.

So that's one thankless task almost done,I'll leave the sand to settle for a few weeks and then I'll bore out the holes.

Feb 11th.

Well I thought it was about time to weigh out all the ingredients to go into my carrot mixes so that when the time comes to mix it up it'll all be ready.

This year I'm slightly reducing the quantity of fertilizer and other stuff by about 25% and going back to my best year's recipe.

Last year I had the idiotic thought that increasing the fertilizer would increase the size.....It didn't and actually a trial batch I planted with half the fert of the rest actually produced superior specemins hence the change.

So here is this years concoction.

4 parts sieved multipurpose compost.
1 part fine sand.
1 part sieved topsoil.
1 part fine vermiculite.

I use an empty gallon icecream tub as a measure and this gives me a 30 litre batch.

Then to each 30 litres I'll add.

3 oz ground up Vitax Q4
1.5 oz Ground up Calcified seaweed.
1 oz Ground Limestone.
0.5 oz Dolomite.
1.5 oz Seaweed Meal.

One difference this year is that I'm adding a little Dolomite which is Magnesium Calcium Carbonate.

By all accounts a little extra Magnesium increases the orange colour and is a general tonic for carrots but it remains to be seen if it'll make any difference.

So I managed to do 12 lots of the fert mix and bagged them up in grip seal bags ready to just add into the mixer when I get around to mixing the final mix.

So that's another tedious job out of the way.

Feb 13th.

WOW !!!

Well,today I got a package from Holland.

And upon opening it realised that last year I joined the EGVGA....The European Giant Veg Growing Association.

I only did this because I'd heard that a lot of the growers of the biggest record breaking veg were members and that they freely distribute their prize winning seed amongst members.

So after I paid my 15 Euro subs I expected the odd marrow or Pumpkin seed.

                  

This is what they sent me.

Some Highlights are Pumpkin seed from Pumpkins weighing 1581,1335,1308,1329,1284,1146,1085 pounds,plus numerous others down to 600 lb.

Marrow seeds from 159,91,71 68 pounds.

Gourd seeds from the European Record holder at 122" long plus one from a 94 incher.

Tomato seed from 4.5,4 & 3.6 pounders.

Seed from a 75 pound Swede.

World Record Kohl Rhabi seed.

Giant Cucumber,Radish,Pepper,Carrot,Parsnip,Beetroot & Pot Leek seed.

Plus some other stuff.

So not a bad deal for 15 Euros.

Feb 15th.

Decided to mix my Carrot and Parsnip Mixtures this evening.

                         

So with my new mini cement mixer it was an absolute breeze.

And having already sieved all the compost and topsoil previously this made it an easy job.

In 30 litre batches all the ingredients were mixed thoroughly and it was a damn site easier than mixing by hand.

                         

I used a slightly different mix for the parsnips using one part more soil and one part less compost with another ounce of fertilizer.

So,that's 360 litres done and bagged up ready for filling the boreholes up sometime next month.

Feb 18th.

It's been about 5 weeks since I filled all the carrot and parsnip barrels with sand and they've now settled a few inches so need a quick top up.

I'll be boring out the holes in a week or so for the parsnips and about 2 weeks later for all the carrots.

                         

Over on the Shallot front,a few are starting to sprout but most are well rooted which is the most important thing at this stage.

                  

And since the big thaw,the frost has really done a good job in breaking all the big lumps up,and the soil's just starting to be prepared roughly by going through it with a 3 pronged hand cultivator.

 

I've got myself a Facebook Page click the link if you're interested,Cheers.

 

    HOME     Giant Onions     BigCarrots     Show Veg    Links

Archives        Veg Videos       Contact/Guestbook