Well they said it would snow and they were right

Today has been a no go as far as getting out and working in the garden because of all the snow, I thought of taking a picture but hey everyone seen plenty of snow so I didn't bother. I did pot up some Begonias that i thought I would try this year mind as i found them in poundstrecher at 4 for a pound I am not expecting to much but we will see and if I find them interesting I might get my hand down a bit further in the future its just they say they grow reasonably well in light dappled shade and I have an area that could just do with a bit of brightening up in summer. The last batch of shallots went in on monday just popped them in 3" pots so will defiantly need planting out later in year, also the first of my dahlias that have been set up since end of December needed potting on they were some spare pot tubers that Jack Gott of Milnthorpe gave me they had just been growing in sand all 2011 in a 3" pot so were fairly small and to be honest I wasn't to sure if they would be OK but he assured me they would be fine and how right he was he said that he had put 5 cuttings in the pot in the spring and sure enough I now have 5 plants coming on the variety is Weston Corsaire I took the chance to check the rest of my dahlia tubers this afternoon and they seemed fine it only seems 5 minutes since they were lifted as it was such a mild back end but I reckon in another 3 weeks i will start setting them up. Just got everything sorted in time to watch England v Scotland in 6 nations good result must say they need to improve but a wins a win and can only help them get better, surprised that their was no snow at Murryfield thought it all ways snowed in Scotland and as a bonus United beat Chesterfield 2-1 keeping our promotion push on track, and just so no one misses it Brentford V United is on Sky Sport 1 on 20th Feb 7.30 should be good.

Windmills at Killington

As I travel around the county of Cumbria most days I thought i would take my camera with me and last Tuesday 17th I snapped this picture at M6 junction 37 it was a great winters day crisp and bright and hardly a cloud in the sky, A bit different to today! Not everyone cares much for the windmills but I think they look quite a feature as you are driving on the M6. Just for the record I set up 30 of my shallots in to some 3 litre pots and put them in my cold frame, usually I keep them in the greenhouse but somehow Judys got her 6 hens settled in their early december , mind they are under eviction orders to be gone by the end of february. I may try growing the shallots in the pots right through as a trial and use the ground that I normally grow them in for something different this year but there again I might change my mind come spring and just grow them as normal.

Leeks and lights

I thought it about time to pot on my leeks again as they were looking like they were in needed a change. I decided I would try some different pots this year as I hope to encourage them to root a bit deeper, with the standard size pots it always seemed that the roots hit the base quite quickly then just went round in circles so with an extra 2"of pot to grow into I hope to see some extra benefit. I do find it a bit of a fidley job ( it took me from 11am to 2-30pm to get 21 done) staking and slipping on the collars which are at up to seven inch and with another inch underground they are a fair bit ahead of the ones I grew last year. The mix I used was 3 parts levington No 3, 2 parts peat saved from last years potato bags and 1 part vermiculite it looked nice and open so I thought I would give it a try. On tuesday I was at our NVS meeting and John Soulsby from the north east talked on growing leeks with artificial lighting some of it was fairly technical but still fascinating to hear the different requirements and options that are available, but I was pleased that he thought Envirolights like I have are a decent compromise for the hobby gardener like me, One thing that I picked up on was that onions need slightly different light spectrum than leeks seemingly if you use a 600 Watt sodium light with dual spectrum and a proper reflector hood is essential, it encourages longer plant cell development giving a more shapely and upright onion than if fluorescent type light is used, so now I know why I am hopeless at growing onions from seed. Last summer I grew some Kelsea onion seed into sets after reading about it on the NVS forum and I am going to try planting them this spring my main thought was that it would save a lot on heating and lighting from Christmas to March , I know it may be not for the purists but if it works I may stick with it so watch this space and see how I go on.

Hello again

Hello and it is nice to be back, as it is just over a year since i last updated i thought it time to get back on the blog trail again. I didn't really mean to leave it so long but I guess I just ran out of things to write about.

I grew A bit less Veg last season and as we had such a wet and cool year it was probably not such a bad thing, got to the usual shows and even managed a couple of best in shows with my potatoes (Amour) and another best in show with a pair of marrows, and I had a go last season at showing Dahlias with some success even getting a bronze medal at Ingleton show with some Weston spanish dancer, and I even put an entry of a trugg of vegetables in at Harrogate which won a second. So thats a quick round up of my 2011 growing year now it's time to look forward to this season.

I have got some nice pendle improved leeks that i got from David Metcalfe in November coming along at the moment, they are under lights 10 hours a day in my growing room with just a small amount of bottom heat. I am trying to take them on nice and steady, last year I think I may have pushed them to fast to soon and they seemed to stall a bit in late May early June and never grew with much vigour after that.

I have plans to get some more stump and long carrots barrels set up so as to get enough to cover an extra show plus I am having a go at long beet this time never really grown them before so I will have to give a bit of thought as to the best way doing them, and as a bit of extra interest I fancy trying to grow some beans for the longest runner bean classes I used to manage to compete with just the longest of my stenner variety but the opposition have upped their game and I have been falling short the last couple of years so this time I have sourced some special seed and, well this time I mean business.

Start of another years growing

Well we definitely had a white Christmas this year and I thought I'd take a picture as they don't (thankfully) come along that often. The snow may not show up too much on the picture but believe me it was chucking it down, and we got another 3" on top of what we already had, luckily it turned to rain on boxing day and now we are having quite a rapid thaw. It's not possible to get on with anything outside but at least it is heading in the right direction.

So yesterday seemed a good day to get on with potting on my leek plants, I was given a nice head of pips (Pendle Improved) at our local NVS meeting in November and after a slow start they have started to do well, recently I think they weren't getting enough heat so I notched it up a bit and put them on to 24 hour daylight. I intend to knock them back soon to 12 hours once they have settled from repotting. If you look closely you can maybe see some of my shallots in the background they are not on any heat but it was a bit rough to put them out in to the greenhouse, so I have started them off inside the box and intend to move them into the greenhouse as soon as a couple of trays of Kelsea Onions and one tray of Pot leeks germinate that I sowed this morning. I don't think my shallots will take a lot of harm if it gets cold out in the greenhouse, if it does get really cold I will pop them on my heat mat at a low temperature and put some fleece over them. Below is a shot of the grow box I knocked up late summer when I was a bit out of sorts and needed something to keep me busy. It's built into some old industrial shelving I had, I lined it with 1" thick hardboard all round and covered it all with reflective foil. Then set 2 separate lengths of heat cable into 4" of sand so now I have enough room to hold 6 standard seed trays with the option of heating just 3 or all 6 depending on whats needed, the lights are 125 enviro lights. The main thing I made sure of was that there was plenty of headroom to raise the lights as my leeks grow. If you look closely you might be able to see a bottle of provado, as yesterday when I was potting on the leeks I noticed there were a few black flies on the leaves which I suspect may have been hibernating on the shallots and the warmth has woken them up so I gave them a quick blast and today they seem clear.

Greetings

Not a lot to say other than Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year to everyone. James

A thumb twiddling sort of day

Some days its just to cold and snowy to go out side and today is one of them days so it seemed an ideal time to get some seed out of the marrow (Blyton Belle from Smithy) that I set to one side early October it was the best one on the plant. I managed to collect about 100 seed that were good and plump so once I have got them nicely dried and stored in the fridge with any sort of luck I should get enough for my needs (3 Plants) to germinate next May. It is my intention to start them of a 3 weeks sooner next year as i did find starting them beginning of June just left it a bit tight for the earliest shows, Normally they do grow fast but with all the very dull cool and wet weather we had here from July onwards it held them back plus pollination was hampered with lack of insect activity. Quite a lot of the seeds that i have ordered have arrived now but im still waiting for Medwyn to send out the Kelsea his own selection I hope they get here before Christmas as I planned to sow them before the new year, that reminds me talking of Christmas I haven't even started any shopping yet.

Thank goodness

What a relief that Wayne Rooney decided to sign I for one was really panicking. Don't think I could have stood another week of all the tension. Not sure which is bigger his ambition or his ego.

Cool mornings and long nights

There was a bit of a nip in the air this morning, not quite cold enough for any frost but it left me in no doubt that Autumn has well and truly arrived, it was enough to make me decide to take the marrow (Blyton Belle) I have been keeping for seed inside, I have left it in the spare room and will give it 2/3 weeks before I open it up and take the seeds out. That done it was time to tackle sorting out my garage, well I call it the garage but it has never had a car in it so I suppose it is better described as my shed, it's surprising what turns up, some things that I thought were well and truly lost had just been lurking in the back of a shelf , I knew I had put them away somewhere safe. Last Tuesday night we had David Thornton along to give a talk to our local NVS club on growing potatoes and very interesting it was too, one variety that he seems to think could be promising is Casablanca so I have decided to give them a go next year instead of Winston which never seem to do very well for me. I also have some Sherine and Amour tubers that I saved from the mini tubers I grew this summer, saving my own seed potatoes is not something that I have done before but as they are almost first generation seed and I made a big effort to keep them healthy I think I will get away with it plus Kestrel that always seems to be reliable.

Bit of a disaster on the football front with United going down 2-1 to Exeter at St James Park personally I think after that result they should rename their ground.

I'm Back

I'm back from a great holiday in Majorca and back on line and blogging again. Thanks to all those that took the time to email me when I was off line. It's a bit late now to bother about this Summer though I did get to most of my usual shows and did get amongst the prizes, I have to say I did struggle to really compete, and this last month I have been putting my efforts into getting ready for next year, even built myself a grow box with heat cables and grow lights so as to be able to start things like onions and leeks off just that bit sooner and keep them moving, hopefully without getting any checks, I have even got most of my carrot and parsnip mixes ready so as I don't have a last minute dash next spring.

On the football front United are having a storming start to the season sitting a comfortable second in the league after last Saturday's win over Notts County, this could be our year for promotion with a bit of

luck just keep your fingers crossed.

Talking about football, I couldn't help but take this picture next to the pool when we were away, yep they get everywhere but I never saw it again after the game against Blackpool, though I'm sure I did see the same guy reading the beginners guide to baseball later on in the week.

On the flower front

Just a overall shot of our back garden, it seems a bit empty in parts but we have put in quite a lot of bedding plants to fill up the gaps where things got killed of in the hard winter. I have put up my flag to support England at the World cup I just hope it's flying high next Saturday when we play the USA in our opening game.

The rhododendrons are now just getting in to full flower which is the best part of a fortnight later than usual, they do make a good screen for my compost bins and store of old plant pots that are tucked in just behind them.

Even Judy's hanging baskets starting to get in to flower.

A check on progress

It's been a strange sort of week here in Cumbria with all the trouble on the west coast and it's put a bit of a damper on things even though we are about 30 miles away from where it all happened, it does make you think if it can happen here in Cumbria it can happen anywhere. On Wednesday there was that much police action going on it seemed more like Los Angeles than here, it's just so sad for everyone affected.

Well on a more upbeat note I think I have finally worked out how to upload pictures with this new computer so I thought I'd give a quick look round and show how most things are looking today.

My onions seem to be growing at a fair old pace and seem to be doing well, it's just a pity that they were a bit late planted, but they may catch up with a bit of luck

The carrots are showing good growth recently and I think they are just a shade ahead of where they were this time last year, maybe it is because we have a lot more sunshine and warmth.

After a steady start the potatoes have sprung into life and I will soon have to think about supporting the foliage and maybe start with a bit of blight control.

The pumpkins are now starting to be hardened of ready to be planted out hopefully next weekend, I had to lift them inside this morning as they were getting a bit of a bashing in the heavy showers we have had this morning.

May 29 th where has the year gone

The carrots and potatoes seem on the whole to be making steady progress this month with quite a surge of top growth in the last week on the potatoes especially, and I have been thinning the carrots down once or twice a week and now most stations are down to just one plant. I try to resist the final thinning as long as I dare as I can suffer a bit with jackdaws pulling them out at times and there is nothing more annoying than empty stations so I hold back till the last moment when the last plant is well rooted and they don't seem to bother as much.

Now that June is in sight and the 5 day weather forecast is quite favourable I decided that it was time to get the greenhouse sorted out, it's amazing just how much clutter seems to build up in the last month or two with all the bedding plants that have been growing on and others that needed overwintering inside, add to that all the potting on over the last few weeks when no matter how hard I try compost and other rubbish seems to get scattered about the floor, so it was nice to get everything outside that will be planted out over the next week or so (except my hopefully giant pumpkins that I potted on only a week ago and will be better inside for a fortnight yet) and have a good brush up, leaving me the space to set up the leeks onions and tomatoes that I grow in large pots in their final positions for the summer plus some cucumber and pepper plants that I am trying for the first time this year, if I get everything sorted this bank holiday weekend I can relax and watch the world cup and as I'm an optimist I think we might do well this time making the final at least.

I will try to get some pictures uploaded in the next few days but just at the moment I'm having trouble working out how to do it on our new computer which is an Apple I think? and seems to work a bit different to our last model, one other problem I am having is it simply refuses to open the NVS web site saying it cannot connect to the server so I am missing out on all the banter on the members page which is a pity or is the site down for everyone I just don't know.

Frosty nights and dry days

Blimey we have had a couple of cold nights this week, down to minus 6 at Shap, which is our nearest weather monitoring station Thankfully it's not got quite that cold in my garden but it's been pretty nippy with a frost and it has meant that the potatoes have needed protection along with some bedding plants that Judy put out last weekend into three really big old metal pots that were once used for boiling swill for feeding pigs in the dim and distance past, another thing that has long since been banned, though it would probably be thought of as pretty trendy recycling now. I brought them from the farm when we moved home. Fortunately a builder's bulk sand bag just fitted over each of them and gave them just enough protection, the potatoes are still small enough to be OK with an upturned bucket over them but it's just as well that I don't grow too many as I had a bit of a job finding enough old buckets. Mind you, even though it's been cold it's been so dry here with almost a month without rain that I have had to do a fair bit of watering just to help things along especially my carrot drums so as they don't get dried out and start wilting.

Its a bit ironic just as it turns cold my 3 pumpkin seeds have germinated though I hasten to add they are well tucked up in the greenhouse and in my propagator at a nice 60+ degrees.They only got planted at the end of last week and they are up and away already, I think Heidi would be proud of them, now I just have to see if we can keep them going without a check till planting

out in June. If they keep growing at this rate, the centre one was the same size as the two on the outside yesterday, they will be big plants by then.

My dahlias are starting to put on some good growth these last 10 days since I divided them. For some reason I don't seem to have a lot of luck at taking cuttings, probably because I start a bit too early in the year when they are not growing as vigorously, so this year I thought I would divide them first and maybe try some cuttings at the same time or later. The cuttings that I took are under the milk carton that I popped over them so as they had a bit of protection from the bright sunshine. If you look carefully at the second picture three plants have quite a distinct yellowing on the young leaves compared to all the rest, they are the variety Marys Jomanda so I am hoping it is just a quirk of that variety and not something more sinister.

Weekend off but no time to put my feet up

It's nice to have a long weekend off and I have been making the most of it with getting on with some much needed weeding, done in my flower beds, before they really get away on me, one problem of making a new garden out of what was an old pony paddock is that there is a large reservoir of weed seeds just waiting to germinate, and they reckon it takes 10 years to begin to exhaust the supply so on that reasoning I should be all right in about 4 years. The hard winter that we had, has left us with some casualties having lost a couple of Hebes and a Cordyline plant that I was particularly proud off, plus others like a ceanothus that has had all its leaves killed of but fortunately it is now just showing signs of coming back with quite a few shoots starting to show on the main stems, it won't be much of a show this year but with a bit of luck it could be back next spring.

My carrots have germinated fairly well with most stations through now with just half a dozen not showing as yet, it may be that they failed because I didn't start watering them soon enough to help them along, the problem being that the drying winds that we have been having made a crust form on the top of the mix and I suspect that some have not been able to push their way through and died, I am thinking of popping in a long beetroot seed in the failed stations as i think it a bit late to resow carrots.

I received my Kelsea onions that I ordered about ten days ago and as they wern't as big as I thought they would be, instead of planting them out right away I just potted them up into some 3 inch pots and kept them in the greenhouse. Its only in the last few days that they seem to have started to move forward so I think it could be another two weeks before they get in to their final position, most will go outside but I will keep about ten in the greenhouse in 20 liter pots to see how they do compared to the ones grown outside. I have been watering them from underneath as in the picture to see if I can encourage them to get their roots down searching for water rather than just stay in a tight ball it might work you never know.

Tonight there is a chance of frost forecast and sods law today the first of my potatoes have pushed through so I have had to earth them up with a bit more peat and the covered them with some upturned buckets to keep them nice and warm, the ones in the yellow buckets are growing Winston with Kestrel in the white buckets and in the bags are my NVS varieties, yellow bags Sherine and blue bags Amour, It's all colour coordinated and planned out you know.

60 Today

This Saturday was my 60th Birthday and though I'm not usually that keen on any celebrations I did make a special effort this year and took the family (weren't they lucky) to watch United play Oldham and just to make it more memorable we sponsored the match ball and had the full days package it was a pity we lost 2-1, mainly because of bad refereeing decisions, and if we had been playing Alec Ferguson's time I'm sure we would have got at least a draw.
There was that many candles on my cake it nearly burnt the house down.





My youngest daughter Susannah and oldest Granddaughters Amy and Jenny thinking of making a substitution, not me I hope.
















Young Ella studying form, you are never too young to start.






















The roar of the crowd makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.











That's me in the middle you will notice Susannah my daughter has already pinched the ball off me.

A bit more done

I can hardly believe that we are past the half way mark in April, I have had that much to do at work it just seems to have flown by, but this morning I decided to start getting the first potatoes planted out, I don't grow that many just a dozen Winston and the same of Kestrel plus this year 5 NVS Sherine and 5 NVS amour, and it was the Sherine and Winston that I planted today. The Winston seemed just a bit further on than the others but with luck the rest will be in by next weekend, quite how the NVS varieties will grow I'm not sure as the seed potatoes that I got sent are only the size of marbles and have only just got some tiny chits on them, it may be they might just struggle to get any size so I will have to settle to get some reasonable sized stock for growing next year.One thing that hasn't come through yet are my carrots that were planted on the 4th of April, still time yet I suppose but they should be popping up soon I hope. The dahlias that I'm growing seem to be doing well out in the greenhouse and it is just a matter of keeping an eye out for frost from now till they go out late May. I do have some fleece to put over them should it be necessary.

April Fools Day

I hadn't realised that it is about 2 weeks since I last logged in on the internet, as I have been very busy with lambing and it has been a hard slog this year, with a constant fight with the poor weather we have been having, any way we are about halfway through now and hopefully a new month will bring better times. After looking round all the usual blogs (you know who you are) to catch up with all that happening, it seems that everyone has really got cracking and left me on the starting line. So I must try and find some time this weekend to get organised, mind I did get all my carrot mix done and into the bore holes last Monday (actually it was quite therapeutic after the Johnson Paint final where United just fell short of their usual high standards) even if it was dark when I got it completed, its not easy pouring carrot mix and holding a torch at the same time. If there is any sign of a bit of warmth I might try and get the carrots sown this weekend, or if not I will try and get my peat shredded ready for setting up my potatoes later in the month. The Winston are getting some shoots up to a couple of inches long now and will need planting out soon, though the Kestrel, Amour and Sherine are still a bit behind and don't seem as urgent to need planting and should be OK till near the end of the month. With a bit of luck I might have chance to do another update this weekend and will try and get some pictures taken to show whats going on.

Now I know why I don't get stressed

Stressed workers given jam jars of fresh air
The jars were filled at beauty spots including Townend near Windermere
Fresh air captured in jam jars at English beauty spots has been given out to city workers in a bid to encourage them to visit the great outdoors.
The National Trust handed out the jars in London after a survey revealed going to the countryside made 70% of people feel more relaxed.

With it being a bit warmer I took the time to blanch my leeks, at the moment they are in the garage under lights that are on twelve hours a day. They are growing steadily enough but the really cold weather earlier in the year, has just held them back a bit ,even though they have had some bottom heat since they were planted up. In about a fortnight there will be 12 hours of natural daylight so at that point I will try and put them out in the greenhouse with just some light bottom heat so as to harden them off and just hope that they catch up by September. I have been moving and dividing a few flowering plants around this afternoon which is a bit later than I would normally do them but as they are still only just breaking into bud they should be OK. One thing I will have to get cracking with is getting all the mixes done for carrots, parsnips and potatoes before we start lambing on the farm. Lambing starts at the end of the month for us and if it gets hard going and we need a extra pair of hands I wonder if I could get Kate Humble to come and help out as she seems to have enjoyed herself on 'Lambing Live' this week.





The really good news is United's great win over Colchester on Saturday. Just lately we have struggled a bit having been hit with injuries to our strikers, and so it was handy our new loan signing Jason Price slotted right in to the team scoring one and making one for Ben Marshall . If we can get a result against Yeovil on Tuesday and Southend on Saturday we may get to the magic figure of 50 points before the Johnson Paint Final at the end of the month .