A New Year ahead of us

We have been so busy here of late that I haven’t had time to be doing any blogging at all.  However Can I first wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year with barrowfuls of Red Cards at the Summer Shows. My onions are growing away well at the moment with the Peter Glazebrook sowing being particularly vigorous.  My own seed selection are doing well but they were sown later than Peters so I don’t expect them to be as advanced.

As I did last year with the Pendle Improved leeks for Tatton, the bulbils were once again removed from the head during late July and they should again be fine for this year’s Tatton Show. My first Parsnip sowing will be during the middle of this month, I hope, using five steel barrels with four station in each. My dilemma at the moment is which variety to sow as there are now so many excellent varieties to select from. Panorama and Pacific look very promising as does another new variety I have had from Tozers and I may well go with that one just see how it performs.

Towards the end of the month look out for a two week article in my column in Garden News on Parsnip mixes. This follows on an idea I had a few years ago when I asked 6 top growers of long carrots to give me their mixes. Interestingly all the mixes were different, yet the growers were able to win at the highest level.  This natural proves that there is no single mix that’s the panacea for all parsnip growers.

The six I invited to participate are winning, or have been winning, at top competitions for a few years.  They were also selected to be geographically diverse so that the climate would not be a governing factor towards the result. The six growers were Jon Branham, Andrew Jones, Ian Stocks, David Thornton Jim Thompson and Graeme Watson. Again the results are interesting as the mixes were different, indeed in some cases completely different. Having written the article I’m not so sure myself which mix I shall turn out in a fortnight or so!