'Snip 'Snip

With Maggie off running the Inverness Half Marathon today, I got back out into the garden to get some more jobs done as it's getting close to that manic time of year.
After topping up and levelling all the barrels, I cored out the two for the parsnips and filled them with the mix. That leaves me three for my long carrots (though I may be tempted to have two for long carrots and one for long beets.

Each barrel has 5 stations and are now just patiently awaiting the parsnip seed to germinate. Now on opening my packet of Pinnacle, I discovered that my 'snip seed has a blue seed dressing coating the seed. This is a bit disconcerting as last year, a lot of growers who had ordered Vento onion seed found their seed also had a blue coating and this definitely had an adverse effect on their germination rates. Anyhow, we shall have to wait and see. Last year my snip seeds took forever to germinate, so here's hoping they are slightly quicker of the mark this year. I have set them to chit about a fortnight earlier than last year in the hope of getting slightly bigger specimens this year. Last year was very much a last minute dash as I wasn't planning on growing snips but was sent a packet of Albion in error and told to keep it. This year I won't have any excuses. Anyway, they are set out on damp kitchen roll in a clear plastic container (with lid) on the kitchen worktop, immediately above the boiler. I shall start checking them daily in about 5 days for the appearance of the radicle and then start to sow them at this point.

The onion sets (of which I have over 150) are all well-rooted in their cells, though some of the sets have pushed themselves out of the compost - something I have heard blackbirds getting the blame for previously. So if you go out one morning and your stes are lying on their sides, don't automatically start swearing at the birds - try shouting at yer onions instead !

My sers will be planted wherever there is space, although the Hercules sets will be in a designated bed alongside my garlic, which I have to say is looking pretty healthy at the moment.

After messing about with my "fussy veg" ( a term coined by my daughter) I started back on the garden itself, by strting to edge the lawns, and extracting nettles, creeping buttercup and willowherb from the borders - sounds easy until you try and do this without disturbing the masses of spring bulbs that are through. - slowly slowly catchy monkey is definitely the only way to get this job done.

Been busy recently

Have been busy recently with work - it's that time of year I suppose, and actually travelled down to Glasgow to help my mum and Jim sort out their garden over the weekend.
On the home front, things are progressing apace, all five varieties of potatoes (Casablanca, Kestrel, Winston, Maxine and Harmony) that are being grown in polypots are showing the tips of their shaws, those shallots that were deemed worthy have been thinned down to four bulbs with the thinnings being used in the kitchen, the broad beans are starting to put on some growth of the vertical kind, the carrots and parsnips are growing away steadily now and the beetroot has been thinned to one plant per station. In the greenhouse, there are still some young tomato and cucumber plants for clients, but of my own stuff, the next two Carmen cucumbers are just showing their first true leaf, the courgettes has two true leaves each, the Stenner runner beans have just germinated, the first batch of dwarf french bean The Prince have been potted into their large growing pots and the second batch sown into 3" pots tonight. The lettuce Festa, the turnips Snowball and the second batch of beetroot Pablo have all just germinated. The one pressing job is to pot on the chillies and Capsicums - tomorrow night hopefully - unfortunately I have paperwork to catch up with tonight.
Over at the tunnel, the brassicas are growing pretty darn quick - too quick in some cases I think, so I may have to make another sowing of cabbages and caulies at the weekend. The onion sets (Setton) in the raised beds are doing really well and are on target for harvesting at the end of July. The tomatoes seem to have settled in are are now beginning to grow away, the aubergines are looking fine and healthy, the first cuke is not doing a lot at the moment but I am not too worried - previous years have taught me that they are slow to get going then absolutely fly when they decide to get started. And the rhubarb is just awesome this year!! and I have already got myself another 4 blue barrels for next season so I might grow more parsnips, and try long carrots and long beetroot too - it's getting a wee bit of an obsession now - wish I could devote more time to it this year but I can only do what I can do.
It was the May meeting of our local gardening club (of which I am secretary) last night and we were treated to a very amusing and informative talk on how to stage exhibits for showing, both flowers and vegetables. More than a few valuable tips were passed on to the assembled audience, as well as recommended varieties that work up here - most of the well known show varieties but also the favoured onion for the onions from sets class seems to be Hercules, and the favoured broad bean is Inperial Green Longpod. For onions from seed, these guys recommended Marco as opposed to Tasco. So thanks must go to JK Ross, John McKay and also to Wattie McBeath, a local exhibition grower who joined them. John brought along a cell pack of a dozen Celeriac plants (variety "Brilliant") that I got hold of at the end of the night, however by the end of today there were none left for me!! However JK is going to pass me a few spare Pendle leek plants that he has so that's another new show veg I shall be dabbling in this season.