Saturday 1st March 2014 - Changes

Evening all,

I thought I'd update everyone on what I have done today at the allotment.

What a beautiful day it was too. I actually got sun burnt inside the poly tunnel, and found it hard to tolerate the heat. And it was only about 7 degrees outside!!

Also, I have bitten the bullet, and have decided that I had to change to layout inside the tunnel to get the best possible amount of growing space.

Originally I had two pieces of furniture at both ends of the tunnel, which I used to store tools, etc...but now I have moved them in the the middle of the tunnel back to back, to provide more growing space in the beds, and give me a workstation for potting up, in the middle of the tunnel.

 It may look a little crowded from the picture, but I do have adequate space to walk around.

The carrots that I sowed about 3 weeks ago are all coming up nicely, and we should have crop as early as May.

I do wish I'd used some better compost now though, as this stuff is pretty lumpy, and could cause the roots to fork.

The broad beans are doing really, have started to flower, and the fragrance inside the tunnel is beautiful.

There's still no signs of the potatoes, but with the heat in the tunnel at the moment, they should have come out of their dormant state, and there must be something going on under the soil. Time will tell. I've added another layer of insulation to them, by putting polythene over the top, to aid them further. I'm still determined to get a crop in May!

I also tidied, and washed all tools, and pots ready for the new growing season. I cannot believe it's March already, and it's so exciting to think that the growing season starts in earnest this month, and we will start to have crops to eat in the next 6-8 weeks, and then all the way through to winter.

Thanks for reading, and please follow me on YouTube.
 
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Making Paper Pots

Evening All,

I thought I'd do a quick piece on making paper pots for growing parsnips. They are also great for growing pretty much anything, but they work particularly well for parsnips, as they are one of the few vegetables that cannot successfully be transplanted.

The reason is, if you try transplanting a root vegetable like a carrot or a parsnip. The process of moving them, is likely to, and more often than not, will, actually damage the root, and cause it to fork. Forked parsnips, are almost inedible, because they are almost rock hard and extremely chewy, making them unusable.

So, I grow them in fully biodegradable paper pots, or toilet rolls. Last year, I used newspaper, but this year, I am trying toilet rolls.

Basically, all I do, is get a used toilet roll.

 
At one end, make 4 slits about 1 inch long, evening spaced apart, all the way round.

Then fold the four pieces in to cover the bottom of the pot. This doesn't have to be perfect, or folded extremely tightly. So it should now look something like this.

Now the easy part. Find a tray, that will fit about 20 in snugly, and place them side by side.

Once you have all 20 in the tray, add compost to them, and place 1 seed in the top of each one.

Thanks for reading, and please follow me on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFmpg8u18HOZ085wfnyjd4A

Mark's Sussex Allotment