Onion and Shallots

These are the only 2 large onions of the 10 that I bought that are showing any sign of making any size at all this year and even these will be struggling to get past a couple of pounds. the rest that survived are now planted out in the open ground next to the Vento onions and seem a long way behind even them.I can only think that they got to dried out in the post as it took 5 days for them to get them delivered. I might with a bit of luck get one to use in the 1 large 1 small onion, and a shallot class. One certainty is they won't be going to Ingleton show, Iv'e seen the size of the opposition see Dans page http://www.allotment-diary.co.uk/









The Vento onions on the other hand are looking to be really healthy so i should be able to select some decent specimens come August. I might have to pull some early just to keep a check on their weight as i,m not sure as to what is the optimum size to get close to 8oz weight limit.











I managed to split down the Shallots to a maximum of 4 on Friday night i did try doing them a week ago but the were reluctant to split then so i just left them a bit longer and it was a lot easier.

Snowdrops

It's been a strange sort of week most of the country seems to have been suffering heavy snow and up here in Cumbria their's hardly been any snow at all, though it has been a bit on the cold side and as a result things are looking a bit behind this year with all the cold days we have been having since Christmas in fact the Snowdrops have only been through since the beginning of February and that's at least 10 days behind where we were last year, the ones that i have taken the picture of are about the most forward and have still not yet opened fully.

I have had a chance to get on with some more digging these last 2 weekends as the ground is quite dry for the time of year, which should save me a bit of time in the spring, with a bit of luck i might get the last of it done next weekend. The Shallots that i started just before Christmas are at long last just starting to move forward some are still to put out some leaf though they are all putting down strong roots so i am confident that they will soon romp away when things get a bit milder and catch up. The onions (Vento) that i planted about four weeks ago seem to be growing steadily although some seem slightly elongated which may be because of a lack of good light, i haven't pricked them out just yet as i am expecting some large Onions plants from Medwyns around the middle of the month and they will need to be kept warm when they get here so if i had potted all the Ventos up in to small pots i might be a bit to pushed for space, hopefully it might warm up a touch and the leeks will be able to moved on next weekend and that should give me enough room for everything, Later on tonight i will chit up my Potatoes they will stay indoors on the Kitchen window sill where i can keep an eye on them.

Can't think of a Title

It was our local NVS meeting on Tuesday night with a talk buy David Metcalfe on how he developed his Pendle and now Improved Pendle leek, the meeting was the most popular of the winter season so far with around 40 / 50 people coming along. He grows both Leeks and Onions in pots the Leek in 50 ltr and Onions in 30/ 35 ltr pots in a mixture of.

For Leeks 120 ltrs sterilised soil + 75ltrs sphagnum moss peat with 1/2 a jar of dried blood
1 jar of dolomite lime 1 jar calcified seaweed 1/2 jar humate 1 jar osmocote exact (15-9-9) and 2 handfuls of viresco dry. Then NO extra feeding. With that mix he hopes to grow blanched Leeks with a girth of 12 ins +.

For Onions 75 ltr sterilized soil +75 ltr sphagnum moss peat with 1 jar of Vitax organic grower 2-1-4 1/2 a jar dried blood 1/2 a jar calcified seaweed 1 handful of viresco dry 1/2 a jar dolomite lime. Then NO extra feeding. The jar he uses is a old 500g chicken tonight jar. Sounds easy growing them when he tells you but?
It did at least spur me on to try and get a few jobs done this weekend so as not have the usual mad spring rush, so i started to empty out all the sand from the drums that i grew long carrots in last season and set them up on the new base that i built last back end' it took an age as i had to barrow the sand about 80 yrd all up hill to refill them, i gave them a splash over with armillotox as i went along just in case anything nasty was lurking. With haveing the extra drums for this season i hope to get some decent Parsnips as well as Carrots next August, at least all this work keeps my mind of all the doom and glum that's around just at the moment i see tonight our dear leader Gordon is about to spend another 200 billion pound helping out the Banks yet again, i hope he knows what he's doing but i have my doubts, what is certain is theirs going to be a lot more pain before we are finished with this recession. Oh i nearly forgot to mention on a more cheerful note United gave MK Dons (the so called away win specialists ) a 2-0 first half lead then stuffed them 3-2 in the second half, great eh! moved us up the league 3 positions as well, as they say United all ways come strong second half of the season so watch this space.

How things stand so far

The weather has turned a lot milder today and hopefully my Shallots will appreciate the easier conditions as they seem to have done nothing since i planted them on the 21st December, i have had to keep a fleece over them almost all the time and had a 60 watt light bulb on under them to give of just enough heat so as to stop them freezing solid, the leeks have been growing well though in the warmer environment that i rigged up for them and are putting on a lot more leaf i put a good covering of Vermiculite around them this morning as one or two pots were starting to get some mossy growth on top of the compost, hopefully with gently lifting it of and covering them with Vermiculite it should inhibit the green mold from growing. I got some of my seed potatoes yesterday which is a bit sooner than usual but being about the first customer i was able to have a good sort through and pick out some nice specimens of Kestrel, i did think of trying Bonnie this year instead for the coloured potato classes but was slightly disappointed with the ones on offer so stuck with the old faithful. I will still need to get hold of some Winston though for the white potato classes as they didn't have any of them in stock yet. The Onions that i sowed last week have been in our airing cupboard all week keeping warm, but i have taken them out in to my propagator in the green house today as i expect them to strike soon and they will need some light, the lupins that were sowed at the same time are now starting to push through.

New year Onions

Is it just me or has anyone else lost track of what day it is with Christmas and now New Year i will be glad when we get to Monday and some sort of normality returns, with it being dry and bright in the main over the holiday period their does seem to have been a lot of visitors out and about and one or two look like they have treated themselves to some new walking gear for Christmas and are full of new year resolution spirit .

Still i decided to sow some onion seed today which is maybe a bit on the early side but i was eager to get started with my new propagator, it is the first time that i have tried growing onions from seed, other years having just bought starter plants ready for planting out come spring time, but the main drawback with that is you just tend to get mainstream varieties and i was looking to get something a bit better to put in for showing come August so i am having a go with Vento f1, not having seen onion seed before i was suprised that it was in a pelleted form being coated with a blue film, it certainly made it a lot easier to see them when sowing and i sowed them at a rate of 50 per tray, i just wonder if it takes them longer to germinate being pelleted, i also sowed a few lupin seeds that i saved from the plants i grew last year, hopefully if they get a good start they should flower by late June. The leeks that i potted on last weekend seemed to have taken it in their stride and are now growing more leaf though one or two seem a bit bent over still, but in the main they are growing well with a good deep green healthy colour to them i will try to keep them with plenty of light and warmth till the beginning of February then they might have to go in the greenhouse with just heating from underneath so as to make room for some large exhibition Onion seedlings that are due from Medwyns mid February.

This hard frost that we have been having should do a good job at killing of a few of pests that seem to have been able to over winter in the mild wet winters we have had in the past few years so that may be no bad thing even if it has meant i am unable to get on with the last of my digging for the time being but there's plenty of winter left for that.

End of the year Start of new year

Their,s a bit of catching up to do on my blog due to the fact that i have been offline for the last fortnight due to a problem with my computer, something about some virus spy ware that shut it down and it seemed to take an age to fix, still we are now back in business. The Leeks that i sowed 6th December are now decent size and i have today potted them on into 3" pots, i sowed 30 and they nearly all sprouted but i think i may have under watered them a bit early on as i had a bit of a disaster with some of the plants that sprouted slightly later in that they really struggled to get going and as a result i had to disposed of them , but the early ones must have had enough root system to find enough moisture to see them through and are now as i said looking well, pity that theirs just 14 left though. I might be able to get some more plants at our NVS next month when David Metcalfe comes to speak about his Pendle strain if he brings some to sell, as it is i have most off the packet of seeds left and will sow a second batch in February. On 21st December as tradition says i planted my Shallots in my unheated greenhouse but with the cold nights we have had since Christmas it might have been better to wait till the new year as i have had to put a light under the bench just to give off enough heat to stop them from getting frozen even though they have some fleece on top as well. A couple(Top left hand corner of picture ) are showing some green shoots now, they were a bulb that was in the process of dividing when i checked them over prior to planting so i just clicked them and as they both had some root system i planted them separate, i will have to watch to see how they go on. In a couple of weeks i hope to get some under 250 gram onions sowed this time i am trying Vento F1 from Medwyns it will be the first use for my new propagator that my daughters bought me for Christmas, thanks a lot Abi, Natalie and Susannah it's a good one and is much appreciated, i think they must have read on my blog that i was thinking of getting one and clubbed together, thanks again. Perhaps i will have to hint i need a new car next Christmas!

Is this the start of winter

This is the sight that greeted me this morning looking out from the front door when i was about to go to work, it was quite a shock allthough the forecast had said their was a chance of snow i was still suprised just how much of it their was. Luckily it hadn't frozen before snowing so the roads were no bother. I had fortunately taken the chance on Saturday to get on with some digging on the veggy patch and managed to get next years Onion and Leek bed turned over incorporating a lot of the compost that i made this summer as i went along then i gave it a splash of magnesium lime which i consider to be better than straight lime it seems as though the magnesium helps plants utilise N P and K more efficiently and then a bit more compost on top, hopefully the cold weather and the worms will do their bit and it should just need a quick forking and be ready to go without much work come spring. It is my intention to have a soil test done about end of February just to check how things are, the P H i suspect may be still be a bit on the low side after the 2 wet summers we have had so if i get the results back by beginning of March there will be plenty of time to get it sorted. It was inside work today and i have been trying to knock up a growing box i have a soil warming cable so if i can get some lighting sorted i may try starting some leek seeds of nice and early (first week of December?) to see if i can get them a bit bigger come August, i know most folks who show leeks start with bulbils but they seem quite a price for someone who is just learning so i think if i grow them from seeds, i might learn a bit as i go on and maybe next year if all goes well i might buy bulbils. The leek variety i have got is Windermere F1 from Medwyns it seemed an appropriate choice considering it's where i live.

Is it the end of September already

It seems hard to believe that we are nearly at the end of September with just the Leeks and Parsnips and Brussel Sprouts left in the ground to be collected over winter, with the weather we are having now been about the best dry spell we have had since late June it has been easier to get on the plot without churning the ground up into a sticky muddy mess so I have spent the day covering next years Onion plot which is quite a heavy clay type soil with a bit of FYM and a good deep covering of compost at a rate of a barrow load and a half per square yard on top, the worms can now get to work over the winter and i will dig it all in around February/ March time. I am fortunate that i can make as much compost as i could possibly need on the farm by using all the grass silage waste and any straw that has got a bit damp over winter and so is not fit to use for our livestock plus i added any sheep wool that was unsaleable . Last April I heaped it all up in one of our empty silos and turned and mixed it once a week (Sunday morning job) with our tractor loading shovel the heat that is generated is hard to imagine when you start the process but after about four months of regular turning it starts to cool and break down into compost it still a bit lumpy but that will soon breakdown over winter. I will also give all the flower beds a good covering through the winter to keep them as weed free as possible for a clean start next spring.

Wired for Spring

Yesterday I finally got round to getting my greenhouse wired up with electric so this spring I should be able to get things of to an earlier start with the Onions and Leeks normally i have waited till late April and planted out bought in ready started plants which is OK but often they have been growing in their seed trays for quite a while and are getting a bit crowded and elongated by the time I can get them into the ground and it does take quite a time for them to get settled in and growing well. The hope is this year i can have them in individual growing cells by late March and plant out a month or so later when conditions are right and keep them going forward without any checks plus i now have made some wire supports to help them to keep upright once they are planted out so i may just have some presentable specimens next show season. All i need to do now is drop some hints that a propagator and heat mat etc would be a nice suprise come Christmas and i'm sorted.

Dodging Showers

It has been a bit wet to put it mildly this weekend but things must go on. The main priority this weekend has been to get most of our farm stock vaccinated against Bluetongue we have been waiting since May for the vaccine to come available in our area so now it has finally arrived it has gone to the top of the list of jobs to get done and a right good soaking we have got doing it.



The ground has been to wet in the veg patch to do much so i set to and made some supports out of some stiff wire for next years Onions. I have always just let them get on with it but it was obvious when i tried them at a local show that the lacked a good shape to win even though they were a uniform size, it has set me on thinking of how to set things up for next years show season and i am going to have to give more thought to when and how often i need to plant crops so as to cover the local show season next year the first one is on the last Saturday in July with a show every weekend untill the third weekend of September and quite a few mid week shows as well all within a 15/20 mile radius, i won't have enough time to be able to enter all the shows but i think i will have a go at a good few and the first one in July is my nearest and the last one probably the most competitive so like i say a bit of thought is needed to cover them all.

Final Onions collected

Decided that it was time to collect the last of the onions they have done nothing this last month the weather has been hopeless with almost continual rain and no sunshine, they will need spreading out to dry for quite a while before puting in store.

Show Time

Seems an age since i had a chance to blog Simon has been and still is on holiday and i have been left in charge on the farm, the veggie plot i'm afraid has had to take a bit of a back seat recently but i did manage to put some entries in to our local show the other night first time i have had a go at this sort of thing so not to sure how it will go but hey it's not about winning just having a bit of fun. I have entered Beetroot , Carrots , Potatoes, Runner Beans, Broad Beans, Onions and Shallots, today i sorted out my Shallots the first 4 were fairly obvious but the 5th one took some finding they look a bit ordinary as do my onions but next year will be better. the Beans Broad and Runner seem to be growing fast now so should be OK the rest will need looking though latter in the week, although i did sneak a look at the potatoes when i removed the tops just over a week ago and they seemed clean but maybe a tad small, oh dear worry worry.