Leek leek leek!

My leek seedlings have been delivered from my supplier today. They come through the post so need immediate attention. First off I place them into a jar of water. Then I make up a potting on mix. This is simply sieved multi purpose compost with a decent amount of vermiculite and a good pinch of nutimate . Then each leek is popped into a small pot and watered in. I'll need to stake the blanch leeks but the pot leeks should be fine. Collars will also be used on the blanch leeks to help with blanching and to keep the plant growing straight. This is a very simple method of growing leeks and is pretty basic compared to the more experienced leek growers. In a day or two i'll put up my grow light.
I've also planted my onions for the 250gm class. I'm growing vento and globo this year. I may make a second sowing in a couple of weeks , we'll see. When these have germinated they'll be potted on and will go under the lights as well. As they grow I'll select the strongest seedlings at each repotting stage, until I have about 10/15 of each variety. These seeds went into the same mix as the leeks.
On the chair front, I managed to finish it just in time for my moms birthday. I think she liked the design and was impressed with how comfortable it was. However she was far more impressed with the cushions my wife made, which just confirms my theory that she hates me!
I've got to work Christmas Day so I'll be having my turkey dinner in the next day or two. I love Christmas and am looking forward to spending it at work with some great guys.
All that remains now is to wish one and all a Merry Christmas and to remind everyone that the only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing at all!

Always Lead, Never Follow!

Well it's been another busy week, with several outstanding tasks completed.
Starting with the allotment, I popped in to see how things were progressing, particularly the broad beans and remaining dahlias. Our local area has been subjected to a number of fairly harsh ground frosts lately, which combined with strong winds could of spelt disaster.
Fortunately all seems to be ticking along nicely. The beans look relatively healthy and are still pretty vertical and the transplanted strawberries look ok. The dahlia’s have gone black due to the frost and I'll now try and find time to dig these up. The tubers will then be washed and any rotten or damaged pieces removed. After drying they'll be stored in boxes of dry peat. Doing this means I don't have to buy new stock and can also propagate my own cuttings early in the year. They can be left in the ground over winter and covered with compost, leaf mould or straw etc for protection. My experience of doing this has been a touch hit and miss, so I prefer the earlier method.
My onion seeds have arrived from my supplier so they will be sown in the not too distant future. I get the bulk of my seeds from :-
Medwyn Williams
Exhibition Seeds
Shelley Seeds
JBA seed Potatoes
Fothergills
Vegetableseeds.net ( very cheap).
I rig up a small light box over a couple of heated trays in the conservatory, which my wife thinks is superb. She understands, and after all, it's only for three or four months.
This last week I've also built my mom a garden chair for her 70th birthday. Helen is making a cushion to go with it. I think she's gonna love it.

Dilligaf Decking!

Well progress is going along steadily on the dinghy front. After a tortuous week at work I've been enjoying some well earn't leave. I managed a few hours work on Dilligaf, cutting the first couple of decking pieces. I'm using plain, straight forward exterior 6mm ply. There really is no value in using marine ply. It's considerably more expensive, and working on the theory that I don't expect this boat to be around for many more years l'll stick to the cheaper option.
I used the old deck as a rough guide to give me a line to cut to. I cut a fair way outside the line giving me room for error, and I can always sand down to the line later. These first few pieces have also now been varnished with a standard exterior polyurethane varnish.
I did make a mistake on the first cut piece of deck by going too close to the line.
But as they say, You can't make the same mistake twice, the second time isn't a mistake, it's a choice!

Choices are the hinges of destiny!

Things are progressing steadily on the dinghy front. HMS Dilligaf has now had the decking beams secured and made solid. After replacing any rotten timbers, I've varnished all around the areas which will shortly be inaccessible . I also put some epoxy and glass tape on the wood joints and areas which I consider will be subjected to the greatest stresses. All this hasn't been done for any great aesthetic value and could be deemed as a bit of an eyesore, but it's merely structural and won't be seen.
Next up is the decking, so I'll be sourcing suitable timber in the near future. I was recently offered some mahogany timber free of charge. Usually bargains like this aren't something to be ignored, but as the donator of this " mahogany timber " has attempted to dupe me before, I didn't get excited. Turns out it was total garbage, only compounding my theory that you should never confuse thoughtlessness with malice, and the guys just thinking of himself as usual.
C'est la vie.
In the garden the recent terrible weather has continued to keep me tied up in the house. I will shortly be sowing the first of next years crop which will be the 250gm onions. Ive generally grown vento in recent years but last year I grew some toughball which are a proven show bench winner, and was hugely impressed. The skin finish was super and they were relatively easy to match up.
More on this at sowing time. I've been busy preparing the conservatory ready to put the heated mats and grow lights in to supply supplementary daylight to the onion seedlings.

Success comes in cans, not cant's!

I've been progressing steadily with my Enterprise Dinghy project. The deck beams that were a little dodgy have been reinforced or replaced. Some of these may look a trifle basic, but this project was always about building a cheap practical sailboat and not a fine crafted, beautifully turned out classic.
I've decided to put on a gunwhale next to shore up the top edge of the side planking. I've also decided to complete the decking before I turn her over. This will give the whole dinghy a lot more stability and rigidity. Then I can crack on with the hull.
Not much will get done this week as not only am I going to the tip ( as previously mentioned) I'm also fitting a door for a pal who doesn't own a chisel! Simply marvellous .........

Compost bins and greenhouse's

Well i managed to build my compost bins down on the allotment. I went for a system where i can add and remove the front slats depending on how high the compost is at the time. This will also make it easier to remove when the time comes. I managed to get 20 pallets delivered for £20, saved me loading them up in my hire car.

Ive also been busy in the garden. I managed to get a 8x6 greenhouse off ebay. I set the frame up and have almost installed all the glass. I have a few panes to order before its complete. At least its a good time of year to be doing these building projects.

I brought my new car a few days ago, its the same as my old one, renault megane estate, so my projects are all go again...

Dilligaf Update

Work on the dinghy has progressed somewhat slowly due to work and family restraints. All the decking has now been removed to the workshop ready to be transferred to the new 6mm ply. I've started to reinforce the decking beams and secure any loose timbers. Any softening wood is being treated with a rotten wood hardener. I've bought some epoxy and glass tape which will also be used to strengthen her up. I've noticed a couple of the hull planks have gone a trifle soft, but this shouldn't be too much of a task to sort out.
When all the decking timbers are sorted and ready to receive the decking planks I will turn the boat over and crack on with the hull. I'll resist the urge to fix the decking so it doesn't get damaged when upside down. The hull will be stripped, repaired, epoxied and painted. When that's done it'll be turned again for work to carry on, on varnishing the thwarts and decks. Then all the running rigging can be reattached. Altogether I am anticipating the whole project to take approx 4 months. This time scale largely depends on how many people pester me into going to the rubbish tip for them because they have completely impractical vehicles, good for very little other than giving them something to polish.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity!
On the garden front I did manage to dig over the tomato greenhouse and incorporate a good two barrows of well rotted manure. From the polytunnel I harvested 2lbs of black grapes. These will go into my wife's terrific grape jelly. Damn she can cook.

It's Always Too Early To Quit.

Well today saw me taking a break from stripping bits and pieces off the boat and begin to craft a few new ones. I used the old bits as a template, marking out the new shapes on the 6mm ply for the deck and the 9mm ply for the transom. I used a jigsaw and cut very slightly outside the line, leaving a little wood which can be sanded down when I come to fitting.
These pieces won't be fitted for some time, as before I do, I'll sand and fit in place then remove and coat with epoxy/varnish. That way all areas, inside and out, will be protected from the elements.
I've noticed a couple of hairline cracks on the main frame so I'm going to epoxy some battens in place to strengthen it.

Onions, Garlic and Decking.

Constant rain and cold wind has pretty much kept me inside this past week, meaning slow progress in the garden. The overwinter onions I planted a couple of weeks ago will hopefully be rooting themselves in. To plant these I just add a couple of handfuls of fish blood and bone, dig it in, and plant the onion so that just the tip is showing. The variety I grow is Shakespeare which have always done well for me. I grow some in the polytunnel and the others in a bed outside. That way they'll be ready at different times.
As well as the onions I popped in my garlic, Solent Wight, which again is one of my favourites. I plant them about 6-8ins deep and then cover the whole bed with cow manure. These should be ready in mid July onwards. This variety is a softneck type is excellent tasting.
On the dinghy restoration challenge I have now exposed all of the one side and fortunately all the timbers seem pretty solid. A lot of the screws that were holding the buoyancy bags in, and holding the deck down, had corroded so much that they practically fell out. I will now examine all the exposed wood to determine what exactly needs to be replaced or at least repaired. Then I can crack on with replacing the decks and gunwales. Well that's it for now.

Andrew's Plot Update. 2/11/12

I’ve had plot 18 for about 2 weeks now, so I thought it was time for an update.  I’ve been down around 6 days now here and there, spending about 4 hours each time.  The one side is nearly all dug over apart from an area by the shed where I’m thinking of adding a small patio area to put my wheelbarrow, a chair etc…  I’ve been digging it quite meticulously, paying attention to getting all the weed roots out whole.  I can only assume the previous owner was rather fond of his rotavator as the amount of dock roots I’ve fetched out has been considerable. Luckily, apart from the docks and a patch of couch grass, I don’t have any of the nasty’s like bindweed and horsetail.  I’m in too minds whether to rotavate it myself as the soil isn’t too compacted. I might see what the winter frosts do first. I’ve also fetched out about 15 buckets of stones and glass etc… Not sure exactly what to do with that at the moment.

 

 

Ill start on this side next.....

 

As I’ve been there as couple of weeks, I’ve had chance to summarise what my plot is like. Lots of books you read suggest doing a soil test, I wasn’t really that interested because regardless of what it said I wouldn’t have the money to buy necessary products to change the soil and besides, I’d still plant what I wanted.  But as I was looking on the internet and they were quite cheap, I thoughts id give it a go.  It turns out I have PH7ish soil, which is good, I think, so id needed not bother after all!  The more I clear it, the bigger it seems to get.  It’s quite a considerable plot, I was going to measure it today, but completely forgot.  I will do that soon and let you know.  So I have plenty of space to plant many different things, exciting!

 

The one issue I can see is some rather overgrown bushes and trees at the back of the plot next door.  This isn’t my neighbours fault, it’s in the garden behind him.  So far, it has casted a shadow over the bottom of my plot for a large part of the morning and although I think in summer it won’t be as bad, I’ll have to be careful what I plant up towards the shed.  Other than that, I’m very happy with my plot and getting very excited about the new season.  I’ve only planted garlic so far but it feels great to have something in the ground.

 

The other jobs I really wanted to be getting on with was making my compost bins and laying a slab path up the centre.  I have a compost system in my head using pallets all ready to go, the only problem being that I don’t have any pallets.  Last week some moron didn’t apply his handbrake up the road from my house, his car rolled down the hill and wrote my car off. I now have a brand new Vauxhall courtesy car which is nice, but not the kind of car for transporting pallets, slabs and other allotment essentials around.  So as soon as I get my new estate, they will be priority.

All in all though, things are going well.  I’ve order my seeds, onion sets and potatoes so things are organised at the moment.  I also spent the morning collecting 20 bags of fallen leaves from the park close by, figure id have a go at making some leaf mould as its free, if only I had somewhere to put it!

Happy Halloween

Carved a cheeky face on my American field pumpkin. Saved the seed because I particularly like the colour and shape of it. To do this I remove the seed, wash in tepid soapy water and dry them on a rack. When they're dry I'll store them in an air tight container.

HMS Dilligaf

Aside from growing and showing fruit and veg, during the dark winter months I like to take on usually impossible projects to keep me occupied. This year I have obtained a 13 ft sailing Enterprise Dinghy to restore. It was an eBay gamble which may backfire, we'll have to wait and see. I drove to South Wales to pick her up with the usual amount of drama. Had a puncture on the trailer, forgot the light board, didnt take a coat for the classic Welsh driving rain and then the weight of the boat caused my vintage trailer to collapse. Nevertheless we limped home and popped her into the garage.

The following day I had a good thorough look over the state of the boat with some trepidation. It was soon apparent that I may have a bit of a job on. While most of the hull seems fine the deck will require replacing as will the transom. I consider this a minor task but my wife thinks I'm an arsehole. So that's the winter project up and running and we'll just have to wait and see. It may be a bridge too far but remember....,,

If you fall on your face, your still moving forward!

Red Mite, this is war!

A few weeks ago, whilst cleaning out the chickens, I spotted what every chicken keeper dreads, the infamous red mite. I thought I had them a few months before, but a quick look on the net confirmed I had in fact just spotted a red spider mite. Similar looking, but not harmful to the chooks.

Red Spider mite:

Red mite:

 

After as bit of searching around the coop, it became apparent that the infestation was far worse than I first thought. I couldn’t understand how it had got that bad. I have a chicken routine. I try to do a quick clear out of the chickens every day, I change their bedding and wood shavings once a week and about once a month, everything has a scrub down. I hadn’t noticed any of the signs before, the chickens were their normal selves, but they were there and it was time to act swiftly!

First I panicked! I’d read that red mite was a real pain to get rid of, if not impossible. There were stories of people having to burn their coops! That was something I didn’t really want to do if I could help it. So after I calmed down I thought it was best to do some research.

It soon became apparent that in order to win this war, I needed to understand my enemy. Red mite live in the nooks and crannies of the chicken coop. They are not like fleas and don’t live on the chicken itself. They come out at night and then feed on the birds blood for an hour or so before going off to hide again. I have a wooden coop with many nooks and crannies so that was going to be an issue.

 

Red mites can cause low health in your chickens, their egg laying can drop and in extreme cases the chicken becomes anaemic and as a result, croaks it. The mites have a 7 day life cycle, it takes 2/3 days to hatch out their eggs and then by the 7th day, they become a mature adult. This was the first information that was really handy, if I could get them before they became an adult and before they laid any eggs, then I would stop that mite in its tracks.

I also browsed the net for the weapons I'd need to win. The two that seemed to stand out were Diatom Powder, this is crushed up fossilised algae that apparently dries out the mites shell and in turn, kills them. The second was Poultry Shield, this is a liquid that you dilute with water and then wash the coop down with. It breaks down organic matter, eradicates the environment that mites love and live in, dehydrates them, then they die. Both seemed to have the desired effect.  So after a bit of online shopping and a day waiting for them to arrive, I was armed and ready for the war to begin.

My plan was simple. I would take the coop apart as much as possible. I would then jet wash the coop, paying particular attention to the places I thought the mites might be hiding. Then I would scrub everything down with Poultry Shield, let that dry, then dust the whole thing with Diatom Powder. If I repeated this every 6 days, thinking about the life cycle of the mite, I might just win.

So that is what I did, four times in the end.  It was such an awful job. Every time I tried to let the coop dry, it would rain. I lost a few screws, forgot where parts went and on a couple of occasions, accidently jet washed a chicken. Don’t worry, all chickens are fine. However, a month on, there doesn’t seem to be a red mite in sight (I can't see much though due to the volume of diatom powder in there, I did get a bit carried away). I have now made this a monthly operation, I certainly don’t look forward to it, but if I can keep those little buggers at bay, it’ll be worth it.

 Andrew.

Bob's Plot Update

Popped down to the plot today to check on things and all seems well. We've had a few frosts around the midlands which have seen off all the tended crops. The new strawberries I planted seem to have taken ok and hopefully will overwinter then flourish in the spring. Also I planted a few rows of broad beans (Sutton) which will be ok through the winter then in theory produce a nice early crop of beans.

What does Jodi do?

Ambles into work at ten past eight,
No respect, doesn't care if she's late,
She sits in the office like some sort of Queen,
Like Jonny Wall but not that mean,
Clueless and stupid and daft as a brush,
But to get back to work she's in no rush,
So what exactly does Jodi do,
Absolutely nothing and that's SO TRUE!

Varieties The Spice of Life

I'm going to prepare a list of which variety of seed I grow with a brief description of why, so I'll be able to refer back in future years.
Tomato: Cedrico, Shirley and Harlequin.
Cedrico is a great tomato for the showbench and is also very tasty on the plate. This is also the case with Shirley but I believe Shirley does better , certainly for me , when the summer isn't what it should be. Harlequin is a smaller type of tomato. Just slightly larger than a cherry tomato they are a good looking and very nice flavoured tommie. All these types of tomato are cordon grown and I grow them all in the greenhouse.

Weed Torching

Today saw myself and my pal, using the paraffin fuelled weed burner to clear his giant marrow patch. This is am excellent tool for clearing land at the end of a season. Not only does it kill the weed, but also destroys seeds along with any slugs or other nasties. It has the advantage of not having to use weed killers or other chemicals on the land. A brisk wave with the burner today, followed by another tomorrow(to clear the dead debris) and the ground will be turned and tilled ready for covering.
In the spring we will then take a soil sample to determine what adjustments need to be made to get soil into prime marrow growing medium. We'll discuss this nearer to the sowing dates!

Remember....

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change!

The blame of blight...

As I'm an avid twitter user, I have had the full backlash of the potato councils comments on blight steaming through all day. The likes of Monty Don, Mark Diacono have all been putting their own views forward on this subject. For those unaware, Allan Stevenson, chairman of the potato council, has urged people to buy supermarket spuds rather than grow their own. He said, "it would be preferable if people bought healthy, well produced potatoes from their retailer rather than grow their own." Now I'm no expert, I'm just one of the awful 'amateurs' he refers too who do try and grow their own, but if you have bought any spuds from a supermarket recently, you'll find they are far from 'healthy' and 'well produced'. Half are bruised, the other half are sprouting and beginning to rot. And lets not forget the bland and watery taste!!

His main point for all of this nonsense is the large blight problem mass producers have faced across the country this year. Allotments and amateur gardeners have been given a large proportion of the blame for not dealing with blight infected crops. He seems to fail to mention the chemicals used by large producers just haven't been up to the job this year and as we all know, this years wet and mild summer is not a one off. So just like us 'amateurs', the large producers have to adapt instead of relying on chemicals to sort everything out. Blight resistant varieties are out there and for some reason they choose to ignore this. As for the blame coming down onto us, composting blight infected potato foliage is not the problem, there is no evidence that the blight spores can live in compost and in turn, go on to infect next years crop. I hardly think our few rows of spuds can make that much of a difference. The other suggestion is that blight spores are being transported to commercial fields from allotments and gardens, has he not stopped to think this works the other way round and they have a lot heavier thump on us than we do on them?

I for one wont be taking a blind bit of notice of Mr Stevenson, I'm already planning which varieties ill be growing next year. And until the mass producers show any willingness to adapt their ways and even grow a decent tasting spud, ill be growing my own and dealing with the blight how i see fit. So Mr Stevenson, how do you like them potatoes....?

New Carrot Bed

Today saw me finish constructing a new raised bed made of sleepers. It is approx 4.5ft high and will hopefully accommodate 18-20 long carrots. It will be filled with sand into which I will core holes to be filled with a secret mixture. There isn't any secret really and I'll talk more about the mix I use nearer to the sowing date. One thing which I do think is important to mention is that when transferring sand from drum to drum (to aerate) I like to sterilise every ft with a weak Jeyes fluid mix. This should hopefully get rid of any nasties hiding away before next season. It's also important to allow the sand to settle before coring.
My plan is to house this bed along with a smaller one for stump carrots in either a greenhouse or a polytunnel . The jury is still out on which will be most suitable. Moving my quality carrots out of the existing tunnel, frees up more space for my giant parsnip and carrot attempt next year. Seed for this has yet to be sourced.
Most of my seeds have now been ordered for next season and I'll be making a note of these on the blog for future reference.
and......
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

It starts with a dig...

So today I officially took ownership of Plot 18, I've been fairly lucky as the man who had it before me has moved to another plot to be closer to his new girlfriends plot.  It still has vegetables on it, although the majority are Caterpillar riddled cabbages, it is fairly well cleared.  My neighbour told me that he moved partly to do with the Dock problem he has on it.  There are a fair few Docks on there, more than your average plot, but that's something I'm not too concerned about for the moment.

 

 

 

These two photos show you two different angles of my new plot.  I have plans to change the layout a bit.  I want to add a composting area at the back.  The paths are crumbling with wood chip spreading allover the soil so that needs a re-think. The shed needs some fixing and it all needs a real good dig, but other than that I think Ive landed pretty lucky really.

This is my latest addition to my ever expanding garden.  I first put a small vegetable patch in the back garden when i moved in 3 years ago.  This has slowly crept its way up the garden and recently, I added 4 chickens to the mix, thats where most the cabbages will go one thinks.  I had no-where else to go, so an allotment was the obvious next step.

My aim is to be as self sufficient as possible with vegetables.  Easier said than done I know, but if i could get 80% of my produce from my garden and allotment, I would be satisfied.  I would love to make it 100%, but we'll see how I get on. I also have an idea for raising meat birds, but thats still in it's early stage. You may also know that Bob, my fellow blogger, is keen on his show vegetables, so I may even try my luck with that.  I'll need some serious mentoring though.

I will keep this blog updated with my progress on all my many quests. I would like to explore a few topics along the way and hopefully publish a good arguement on all sorts of debates.  I'm already trying to decide what kind of gardener I want to be. Should I go chemical? Organic? Can there be a happy medium?  I'm looking at this now and weighing it all up, so watch this space....  Thanks for reading. Andrew.

If winning isn't everything...........

Hello and welcome to our blog, Growing Pains. Follow us as we endeavor to fumble our way through the wonderfully frustrating world of growing fruit and veg. 
 The 2013 season starts here for the avid gardener. Work put in now, pays huge dividends next year. A brief list of the jobs I like to crack on with in October are as follows...
 Jet wash the greenhouses
 Clean all garden tools and equipment with diluted Jeyes fluid or Amarillatox
 Cultivate the soil with compost or well rotted manure (where appropriate)
 General maintenance (sheds paths etc)
 I also add a dose of lime to certain areas to "sweeten" the soil
 Remove the sand from my long root drums to sterilize and aerate it
 Cover up whichever portions of ground will be planted up initially next year, firstly to warm it slightly and secondly to keep the weeds down

 Last but not least is to order my seeds. This is by far the highlight of many a cold winter evening. To dream of harvesting the sweetest corn or the biggest spud, or to win the heaviest marrow at the Village Fete, is what its all about. Sipping Dr Pepper with home made pickled onions is a treat that only the luckiest few have savoured .
 And remember, 

  If winning isn't everything, then why do they keep score?