Medwyn Williams is pressing on with seed sowing of long carrots
The preparation has all been done so now it's time to press on with seed sowing
I’ve been talking a lot in my last two columns about growing long carrots and next week, weather permitting, I'll be sowing my own selection of long carrots in blue plastic drums filled with concreting sand.
I'll be growing these outdoors. We do tend to think that growing under cover is a must these days, however you can certainly grow them successfully outdoors as I used to do many years ago when I won the NVS Championships on more than one occasion.
I will initially core out the sand using a plastic pipe 1.2m (4ft) long. The one I use is the same one that brings your rain water down from the roof with two holes drilled on one end so that I can push a piece of steel through as a handle. The top of the plastic barrels are smaller than a 45 gallon drum so I only have four stations per barrel whereas I would have five in the steel drums. After removing the cores as deep as you can I finish the job off with a pointed steel bar.
I fill the holes slowly using the following mixture: 75-litre bag of Levington F2S, 280g (10oz) of finely ground calcified seaweed, 120g (4oz) of Medwyn’s Base Fertiliser, 85g (3oz) of single superphosphate, 55g (2oz) of Nutrimate powder and 10-litres of fine grade Vermiculite.
I've used different mixtures over the years but I find this one works best for me. Make sure to pass the whole mixture through a fine sieve.
Many top exhibitors have their own recipes and very often they're all different to each other but still produce top quality roots. The above mixture is a reasonable guide but the best way in the end is to tweak the recipe to suit your growing conditions and locality as I think it’s certainly a case of horses for courses.
■ Why not follow me on Twitter – @ medwynsofangles.