MIXTURES FOR OIOINS AND CARROTS

I have aready said that i will be making a few alterations this year re to different mixtures so this is what   i will use for the onions and carrots.

ONIONS
 peat
 compost   vitax q4
calcified sea weed
fish blood and bone
chicken manure.

CARROTS
sieved vitax q4
calcified sea weed
super phosphate

No doubt these mixes will not normally be used  but they are something i am prepared to try and i might get some good results  so i will let you know when the time is right .

The runner bean pots are also ready  filled and ready for the beans to be sown at the right time.

After doing the above i planted 40 dahlia seeds which will be for the garden border i also planted a few aster seeds.  Will post more later on.

BEAN STICKS--TRAYS---POTS--AND SPRAYERS.

Although todays weather was a bit dull with overcast i decided to get a few small jobs out of the way by using the 10ft green house to work in. The first thing i done was to dip the end of the bean sticks in a fluid to protect them from rotting when in the ground. I have done this now for quite a few years because i was always cutting some of the bottoms off ware they had gone bad.
My second job was to clean all my potting up pots ready for potting when needed. They will be used mainly for beans and tomatoes. I do use about 50+ most years and they are the 4" pots.
I also use a 3"pot for young flower plants.

Now for my onions i always use 4"pots but they are 5" deep which i have found great as i find that the roots dont get disturbed to much when putting them in there final place for growing on.
My final job today was to make sure my water sprayer was clean and working ok
More info later on.

ANOTHER GOOD DAY

Yes we have had another very nice day  and i have been able to get a few important jobs done which takes a bit of tome. The first one was to get all my mixes ready for the carrots ready to go in the long pipes which are 4ft 6" I have made a few alterations re to the mix this year to see if there will be better results than  last year but as i have said so many times it is all trial and error so we will see if any in about 22 weeks time.

The second job was to get my tubs ready for the onions which should be with me the first week of april, again i am going to make a change and use chicken manuer and sand and dried blood and fish bone.. and also calcium.
No doubt there will be people who will have there doubts about my mixtures but i do try to find the best way to grow which suits me and also the pocket. You never can tell what you can achieve unless you try these things.
My son took me to the nuseries and i was amazed at how the prices has risen compared to last year, for example the compost i used last year has gone up £1-10p per 60ltrs, a bag of fms-2 with sand is now
£13-00. Because of this i have gone back to my usual which is vitax q4 and to be quite honest with you you cant realy go wrong with it mainly because there is very little wast such as lumps and hard compost.
This is all for now untill next time.
 

A pleasant day on the garden

Yes it was a pleasure to be able to sort the garden out  what with the nice sunshine we have had today. My first job was to get my boys to do a bit of lifting for me as i am restricted in doing any lifting or bending. The one main thing that had to be done was to get the bean beds sorted out  ready for the canes to be put in the correct place, i know it is still a bit early but at  least it will be all done ready for planting when the time comes. The second job was to sort out my mixture for my carrots which consist of 2 sorts,  the first one is for long carrots which is being grown in 4ft-6" pipes when i grew them the last time they were 4ft in lenght and not a bad shape at all, i am this year going to try a slightly different method and see if there will be any different in condition. The second carrots will be grown in pop bottles as i have nearly always done and have always had good results. some people might laugh at that way but you will be surprised when you see the results. One good thing about the pop bottles is that you can put it any ware you want even in between flower plants and still get a good one.

Onions.
This year i will be hoping to have a reasonable show of onions which will consist of kelsae which will be plants from DT BROWN, the reason why i am getting them from DT BROWN is because i was to late to plant any of my own seed which i  sow in december which would give me a better chance of getting a nice big one so we will have to wait and see what happens.

TOMATOES.
I have decided to grow  again this year what i grew last year as the results were very good indeed.
1 GARDENERS DELIGHT
2 SUNGOLD F1
3 STRILLO
4 SWEET MILLION FI
I will not use all these plants as i give my daughter some has she is getting green fingers now and is doing very well.

BEANS
The beans i am growing this year is a bean called BENCHMASTER, now i have not grown these before so it will be interesting to  see the results and compare them to what  usually grow.

One last thing i would like to say, is that i hope all the  the people who suffered from this terrible weather we have had did not have to much damage done to there polytunels or green houses. Will be in touch at a later date.

NICE TO BE BACK ON THE BLOGG

Hi all,  after been ill for quite some time i have now been able to start keepiing in touch with a lot of people i know and to find out how they are doing this year in the gardening season. No doubt they will be pleased that now the fine  weather has arrived and that it will give the veg a boost as well as the tomatoes,but saying that we also got to think about the watering which is very important  especially with the soring hot weather we are having. Before i carry on i would just like to say that i WIIL be getting intouch with all the bloggers i know. This year i have not been able to do alot but i have managed with a little help to get the runner beans going and up tp now they are doing well, i also managed to get in 40 turbo onion sets and they to are not doing to bad. As to big onion it has not been possible but all being well i will be ready for next year.Re to the green house i have got 12 tomatoe plants doing fine  and the ones i have are  (super sweet 100) (alise craig)  (gardeners delight)  I forgot to say the beans i am growing are polstar and lady di and they realy are growing fast and full of flower, mind you i do give them a lot of water which is in the morning and also at night. Just a little info on what i do before i plant out my beans and that is to give them a good dose of seaweed exstract  every 4 days over a period of 3 weeks and it has proven to me that it does work and how i found out i first used the exstract on 10 plants and not the rest and as i said it proved to me that it does work. Any how it is now time for me to close but i will be  back.       

THIS YEAR IS COMING TO THE END

Yes this season for growing is about to come to an end and i suspect that a lot of gardeners will be looking at what they have achieved and what they have not.I think i said in my last blogg that it has not bean a very good year at all for growing and that in its self can be heart breaking especially when they had big hopes for shows in 2012. Mind you some gardeners did have good results and i take my hat to them as they must have really worked hard to get good results. I  have spoken to a few gardeners and they have said that the problem they were getting was in the early part of the season when we were not having the heat that was required from the sun. owing to this they found that they had to use electric or gas fires in there green houses for young seedlings. All being well  in 2013  i will be using double insulation to make sure that i have better results than in 2012.  I have said that because of illness i did not have a good year in 2012 but i do not intend to dwell on that and that a good friend of mind is going to give help when i want it.(that is what friends are for).Just a well done to a few of the gardeners that i know, smithy veg, john martin, paul bastow, darren blick, dan, richard walton as matter of fact to all gardeners.

GETTING READY FOR THE WINTER

As the title says  i am now getting everything sorted out before we have the bad weather. I must say that because it has been a bad growing season this year i really do not have a lot to do. My green houses has been sorted out  and i will start to decide what i am going to grow for next year. Now that my health  is deteriorating i do have to think very carefully about what i can do so i think i will be acting on the info that i have gathered from all my gardening friends in which some cases seems much easier than what i have always done. As a lot would have read in one of my bloggs i have always gown a lot of carrots in pop bottles but i do have to admit it is now out of the question because of the bending and breathing. Any how i still have a few months to go before i make a finale decision. Update to follow.