Sunday, February 15, 2009

I plough the fields and scatter, the good seed......

....... on my potting bench.


If I can get this lot dealt with this year I'll be well pleased.

7 comments:

The Gnome said...

Now come on Woody. You cannot pull the wool over our eyes. Since when was that your potting table ? It is a highly polished dining table. There is not an ounce of potting compost or genuine gardening dirt on it. Where was this picture taken, in a sterile room ?

Gordon Mason said...

In a not very sterile and chuffing cold garage actually! It's actually an old worktop on two old legs (not mine) but I do like to be tidy as I work, as you can see.

Mind you, there were a time when I'd have been reet pleased to have that as a dining table. That were when we lived in a hole in 't ground and our dad made us eat gravel every day.

Gravel? Every day? You were lucky; we had gravel once a year for our Xmas presents. Xmas presents? You were lucky, etc etc

Nutty Gnome said...

Eeh, by 'eck, when I were a lass ....I didn't much like gardening back then!(I was young, I didn't know any better!)
I bow to your organisational skills Woody - even if your garage is chuffing cold!

Nutty Gnome said...

Ey up Woody, it's me again.
I know you've got lots of seeds there, and obviously grow lots of stuff, so I seek your wisdom oh guru of the allotment - I need some advice....!

what's the best way to grow carrots?

Mine all start off lovely and straight, then I transplant them and they end up with several legs and sod all length!

What am I doing wrong?!(with the carrots - everything else will have to wait!)

Gordon Mason said...

Ey up Nutty (which is a call much heard in the Sheffield panto season when Bobby Knutt, local hero, takes the stage)

Any road up, I confess that I don't actually grow carrots!! I don't like 'em much and it seems like too much effort. But I think where you may be going wrong is in the transplanting. Root veg are notoriously poor transplanters, often forking in the way you describe. A friend of mine, for his parsnips, first makes a deep hole with a crowbar, then fills it with potting compost then sows direct into that. People growing for show, carrots & parnsips both, tend to grow them in deep narrow containers, often filled with finely sieved compost or even sand and feed them all inorganically with liquid feeds.

So perhasp the answer is to sow in situ and thin out, rather than transplant. You may also have better luck with the short dumpy round ones than conventional long narrow ones.

Hope this helps; the only thing which gets me to eat carrots is if Wilma Wilbury honey-glazes them!

Nutty Gnome said...

Haa ha, I know all about Bobby Knutt - I may live in Derbyshire now, but I'm a Rotherham lass born and bred....yer can tek the girl out o Rothrum, but yer can't tek Rothrum out't girl!

Thanks for your carrot advice - and parsnips (I had the same problem with them too!). Looks like I'll be wielding me crowbar then...!

Your chinese friend is obviously impressed at what you're writing!

Frankie said...

Hmmmmm I wish I had my seeds laid out that neatly.