Celery & Parsley Sown

The weather was a bit better today but we have suffered from snow and hard frost for the last week or so.  Today was spent in the greenhouse re arranging my leeks & onions and sowing my first lot of Celery, I've elected to try Star Burst this year and I'm hoping to have some ready to show On the 31st of July at The Black Isle show, hence why I'm starting so early.  I also sowed my Parsley today in the hope that I'll get some plants for our local shows.  I've sieved my Levingtoms F2 compost then placed the seed trays in water for 5 mins to allow the compost to soak up the water.  Then I sowed the seeds and covered them with fine Vermerculite and placed into my propagator.  

Here are the two seed trays with Globo seedlings and "Matador" a shallot which I hope to grow for the local shallot from seed classes. The Matador has only been sown 10 days so I'm fairly pleased with the germination.

I've always struggled with my onion seedlings and getting them to stand up straight.  Here is a "Red Barron" seedling with a home made support. These I have just made this year and seem to be doing a job.  

This is an update of my earliest batch of leeks. They have 5 inch collars on them and as you can see they are starting to stretch quite nicely.  I am slightly worried that they have "stalled" a bit this last week but I've re arranged the growing area for them and they now have a tube heater underneath them which I hope will encourage them t continue growing.

This is my second batch of leeks which I have just added 5 inch collars to, They were only recently poted into their 2 ltr pots and I'm hoping they will now grow on. 

I now have all my leeks under the same light with the youngest batch at the front.  These were leeks I got from Dave Metcalfe and appear to have broader leaves than my other ones.  I will pot them up next week.

This is the my onions that I got in plugs on the 2nd of January I'm potting them up into 1 ltrs pots of M3 compost with perlite. They are growing on nicely and the best have 4 or 5 true leaves and 14 inches tall.

Favourite Garden Supplier

It was really cold here today and as I was at home I had a good few hours in the greenhouse. Also took a trip to my favourite garden supplier, (the recycle centre).  Where I got 30 1/2 litre square pots, 20  1 litre square pots and a number of 2 & 3 litre round pots for the princely some of £2.00.



Here are the onions I picked up on 2nd January.  The best of them are about 12 inches tall now and are starting to fill the pots that I put them into.
 

This is 36 Hercules onion sets that I potted up today in 1/2 ltr pots and M3 compost.  I'm hoping some will mature for the onion from set classes for this seasons shows

I also potted up 12 Red Sun Shallots into 1 ltr pots of M3 compost and these will keep the onion sets company in the green house.

Here is my BC 20 Stur onion sets which are also in M3 compost but in fibre pots.  I'm hoping some of these will mature for the NVS branch show at Dundee in September.  I'm looking for them to be about 300 gms.

 And finally I sowed Matador Shallot seed as there are a couple of the bigger shows up here which have a class for shallots from seed.  This is the first time I have tried this shallot and I hve then in a 40 cell tray in along side my Globo onions.

Collared Leeks

Had a busy couple of afternoons in the greenhouse this weekend. On Saturday afternoon I re potted my biggest leeks into 2 ltr pots and also put on their first collars.  These are 5 inch long pipe insulation,. This is put on to encourage the leeks to stretch.  At 5 inch the collar is about 2 inches above the button.  The tallest of  these leeks is about 25 inches to the tip of its flag leave.

I also set up my new light which allows me to give more light to all my plants.  On Sunday I re potted the leeks I got from Dave Metcalfe.  These are now in ltr pots and are roughly 13 to 16 inches to the flag leaf and the barrels are only 2 inch long.

My other leeks from Alistair Gray are closer to 18 inch to the flag left , however they are still quite thin so I'm leaving them without collars for mean time. In the picture above you can see some onions to the left of the leeks. These are settling in nicely and starting to grow on. In the one below shows Alistair's leeks still with out support, I'll put canes in tomorrow

"Globo" Onions Germination at last.  I'll leave them in the cells for a while yet,

First Post of 2013

We have had some reasonably dry weather up here in Morayshire over the pasr week or so with the temp getting up to 12 degrees outside.  I also took delivery of two lots of leeks taken up to me by my good friend Neil Muirhead.  One lot from Helen Vincent and One lot from Alistair Gray.  The first photo shows them the day  I got them 28th Dec.  The leeks from HV ranged in length from 18 to 22 inch with AG leeks younger and ranging from 12 to 13 inches.    

This is a photo taken today of the new leeks now they have settled in.  HV leeks are now ranging from 20 to 24 inches to the flag leaf, with the AG leeks ranging from 13 to 16 inches.  The Dave Metcalfe leeks are between 12 & 14 inches with the Leeks I started myself roughly 9 inches.

I have 20 odd Red Barron onions potted into 2 inch pots and only 6 Globo, I have sown another 40 cells of Globe hoping they will germinate well. I also got some onions from Neil Currie from Bute the other day and have potted them on.

This all means that I've very little room and I'm waiting for my new light to come, hopefully Wednesday  this week. Which will mean I can then move plants around a little.