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Post by scrumpy on Feb 18, 2012 9:38:11 GMT
To preparing my sweet pea beds......only 3 months late!!
No manure this year.
I work on 1 sq yard at a time, take out the top spit and into the bottom layer i've incorporated a couple of oz chempak trench fertiliser with 2oz of fish blood and bone, with several good handfuls of just naturally compost by Keith Singleton.
Will let that settle for a couple of weeks, then i'll do the same without the trench fertiliser for the top layer, and hopefully will plant out 3rd/4th week of March.
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Post by ladybird on Feb 19, 2012 14:00:18 GMT
never too late scrumpy, that sounds like a lot of hard work wil you do that every year or is it a once off?. have you sowed you SP seeds yet ?
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Post by scrumpy on Feb 19, 2012 16:22:42 GMT
Depends on your soil and how they perform each year as to what you do October time, which is when i usually prepare the beds. That gives the soil plenty of time over winter to let the lower level settle down. Because i have a very very light sandy soil....i can dig the garden with a hand trowel.... i usually bang in lots of horse manure plus trench feriliser into the lower spit every October. Then come February/March, depending on soil conditions, i'll work on the top spit. Last year i had very strong plants, but the flower spikes didn't last as long as usual. Also suffered with mildew badly. So i decided anyway to give the manure a rest. What i would have done to the lower spit had i the time was dig as i said but just add double the trench fertiliser, no manure, and add all left over compost from the tomatoes and potatoes etc to give it a bit more body. As to "hard work", it's not to bad. My beds are about 2 foot wide, so i take out about 4 foot in length of the top layer soil, fill up a wheelbarrow or two with it, then use the next 4 foot of soil to fill up the first section. At the end of the row just fill it in with whats in the wheel barrows. My two 20 foot beds takes about 2 hours to complete My Sweet peas sown in December/January look like this today after being out in the cold frame since then and after being covered in snow this morning   The mid December ones are just starting to form side shoots so by planting out time.....probably end of March this year, there should be some nice growth on them. If not, i'll stop them about 20th March. They are about 6" tall and not to stringy. If i'd started them off October/November they'd probably be ready to plant out now. |
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Post by ladybird on Feb 20, 2012 8:40:58 GMT
They look pretty good scrumpy, the coldframe look nice too. what have you sowed them in ? B&Q don`t do peat based comp any more so I bought some john innins. i havn`t even sowed a seed this year yet.
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Post by scrumpy on Feb 20, 2012 14:14:36 GMT
They look pretty good scrumpy, the coldframe look nice too. what have you sowed them in ? B&Q don`t do peat based comp any more so I bought some john innins. i havn`t even sowed a seed this year yet. They are in something called Humax original. Totally peat based. Luckily we can still get pure peat based composts if you look around, though getting them to Belfast may be a problem. I will not touch any garden centre compost that is reduced peat/peatless, ie, all of them. If you want a peat based compost you can always make your own. Chempak do a seed and potting mix. Just buy neat peat.......i'm sure somewhere in Ireland sells it  and mix it as it says on the packet a bit at a time in a wheelbarrow. Guaranteed good stuff. Far better than what you are buying. John Innes no 1 for sowing and potting should be fine. Get them sown as soon as possible though. |
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Post by Rosie on Feb 20, 2012 17:39:44 GMT
They look pretty good scrumpy, the coldframe look nice too. what have you sowed them in ? B&Q don`t do peat based comp any more so I bought some john innins. i havn`t even sowed a seed this year yet. Ladybird, B&Q have changed their compost it's called Verve and you can get peat based in that range. B&Q multi purpose is usually very good stuff. Your sweetpeas look lovely and healthy Scrumpy  |
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Post by scrumpy on Feb 20, 2012 18:53:34 GMT
Well they've had some really hard frosts on them, frozen solid for about 5 consecutive days not so long ago, so they should be able to cope with anything else that comes along.
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Post by Tel on Feb 21, 2012 7:54:53 GMT
Good luck with them for the show season, Scrumpy. |
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Post by ladybird on Feb 21, 2012 14:36:50 GMT
[quote author=rosie2755 board=sweetpeas thread=1899 Ladybird, B&Q have changed their compost it's called Verve and you can get peat based in that range. B&Q multi purpose is usually very good stuff. [/quote] The elderly guy in B&Q told me they don`t do any peat now Rosie . I had a lot of turf for the fire untill a few weeks ago, straight from an irish bog, should have put some through the shreeder ;D |
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Post by scrumpy on Feb 25, 2012 12:39:29 GMT
Good luck with them for the show season, Scrumpy. Cheers, having the nationals at Wem is spurring me on at the moment. Soil now fertilised.....getting impatient to plant them out but will still wait a few weeks for that extra root growth and side shoot development, even though conditions are ideal at the moment. |
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Post by scrumpy on Mar 3, 2012 21:29:28 GMT
Decided to stop them today as the unseasonal warm weather has brought them on a lot. Will give them a dose of soluble balanced chempak fertiliser now as it has been about 8 weeks in the original compost, and may bring forward planting out by a week or so.
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Post by scrumpy on Apr 1, 2012 21:20:33 GMT
Spent yesterday and today planting them out. After the stopping on March 3rd, this is how they looked   The pictures show the size i like to plant out. I used 2 composts to grow them as they were what i had left over from last year, humax and interhort professional. I grew them in pots as shown and some in rootrainers. I would say that the ones in pots were better. The roots in the humax were finer than interhort and easy to untangle. The roots in the interhort were better, but difficult to untangle. Next year i'll be back to the home made Singleton/JI no 2. Anyway, this is what they look like after getting out the pot. Again, just about right.  Growing 136 this year.....my class at the nationals is for exhibitors growing up to 150 plants. So it's 106 in the garden, and 30 in these as an experiment.  and these are the ones planted in the garden  I have got another 16 to plant out in the garden, and another 30 in the pots. They are from seeds sown a few weeks after the others and aren't quite ready. Will let them do their own thing for about 3 weeks, then it will be time to choose the best shoot to grow on. |
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Post by grindle on Apr 2, 2012 4:26:39 GMT
your garden will smell so nice when they all start flowering ;D
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Post by Cherry on Apr 2, 2012 7:02:14 GMT
It is good to see how others grow them. I don't think mine get stopped. I think they do it themselves, but I would hang on to two leaders for a while to see if they were alright. Yours are in a very good sheltered position.
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Post by scrumpy on Apr 2, 2012 19:36:19 GMT
The main reason i stop them is to see what the leaders look like before planting out. Out of 25 plants of each variety, I need 20, but not all of them produce good leaders, so rather than wait until a few weeks after planting to see what comes if they haven't naurally broken, i help nature along a bit.
I've probably got 16 or 17 reasonable plants of each variety with at least one good leader, so next year i'll grow 30 plants of each to get my 20.
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and mix it as it says on the packet a bit at a time in a wheelbarrow. Guaranteed good stuff. Far better than what you are buying.
