Takasumi Charcoal

The Takasumi charcoal has arrived in a big box.  I am still thinking about how to use it.

I will be marinading some of it in comfrey liquid but I am thinking of trying some of it neat.  I reckon that it would be more effective if inoculated with nutrients, however I might be wrong.

Lots of the experiments that the commercial firms have done are using pot plants.  What might be illuminating is how it affects containerised tomatoes in the greenhouse.  The conditions there might be a little more homogeneous than outside and the growing medium used could be from the same batch.

This I will do.

Last of the tomatoes and squashes.

A frost was forecast so I decided to harvest the rest of the tomatoes and squashes.  The plants had fallen over with the weight of the fruit on them and become a little dirty.  I gave them a good wash and left them to dry.

Some of these will be left in paper bags to ripen off.  Others will be used to make chutney.  The squash are not very big but I think they taste better when they are this size. They will probably be roasted.

The tomato plants have been put into large, empty compost bags to bring home and put into the green bin.  They are not diseased but I still want to be sure that I do not contaminate the soil with blight spores.

The pumpkins are getting really big now and I will have difficulty taking them home.  I want to weigh them on the bathroom scales to see how much they weigh.  They are not the biggest I have ever seen but they are not too bad.

I am using an old bread basket to sieve the new potato bed soil.  It seems to be just the right mesh.  The holes are about 1 inch square.  I am getting quite a lot of stone out of both the top and the subsoil.

                                 

The subsoil is particularly hard and full of stone.  I have to use a fork to get into it. However, I am determined to sieve as much of the soil as I can before the cold weather starts to close in.  

 It looks quite benign in these pictures but that subsoil is a tough old nut.  I could go deeper but it would take a lot longer for little effect.

You can see that I have been burying the old strawberry plants at the bottom of the trench and old horse muck is being sieved into the top soil.

So I put about three spade fulls of top soil to one of horse muck.  This is just right because the soil forms a cluster around the muck and allows it to fall through the holes.  So the sieve allows the soil to be mixed while removing the larger stones.  I don't mind a few stones in the soil because they keep the soil open: they may add nutrients when they are weathered and they can help with soil drainage.  

I am using this old spade because the ground is so stony.  I would much rather use a stainless steel spade because little of the soil sticks to the blade.  

Gave my tools a clean when the Sun went down just to keep standards up.  

  

Seed planting

I have planted some Musselburgh leeks (Allium ampeloprasum v. porrumand)  and a mixture of old lettuce (Lactuca sativa) seed.  I will sow some more later in the month and during March. The tomatoes  (Solanum lycopersicum L. var. lycopersicum) I sowed last week are Totem. They are a dwarf stocky variety and I will be growing them on the staging in the greenhouse. 

Planting Tomato Seeds

I am going to plant some Tomato Toten F1 Hybrids tomorrow.  I found these seeds in the shed. I don't know how long they have been there but they have never been opened.  If they don't grow then I will be no worse off.  If they do then it is a bonus. 

As you can see all the sweet peas have gone over.  Bit of a disaster.  Not a pretty site at all.  I doubt if I will be able to rescue any of them.  Never mind.  I have bought new seed and only allowed myself 8 varieties.

Blue Danube

Gwendoline

Jilly

Eclipse

Mollie Rilstone

Bristol

Restormel

Valerie Harrod.

They are all exhibition varieties and all ones that I have grown before.  This is getting to be an expensive hobby. 

I also bought 5x 2.5kg bags of kestrel potatoes.  

The Ailsa Craig onions have germinated and I have put them out in the cold greenhouse.  I am hoping that they will survive.