Get going on sowing outdoor root veg

sunrise over Linfield 8.25 am

Good morning everyone! and what a lovely morning it it. After a good nights sleep, no dreams of my sister in law turning into a Zombie and throwing her head at me like the night before, I'm rearing to go. Yesterday evening I dug out the carrot and parsnip beds and today its a light clearing for spud beds, except for the bed covered in strawberries and briar's-I'm really looking forward to that one.

The whole vegetable garden is getting a makeover but its staggered over three years to keep all beds productive while the upheaval is going on. The original planks of wood we used were fine but light and the two exceptionally cold winters showed up their frailty by buckling and cracking them. The original beds were too long, 12-16 ft, making them hard to get around, not to mention tedious to weed. So last spring the bottom row were converted into shorter higher 8x4 beds, with five of them in a row, and this spring its the turn of the middle sets of beds, with the complication of the glasshouse thrown into the mix.

nasturtium seed germinating

So right now my rotation plans are worked out for the new beds at the bottom and the old beds at the top only.So those are the ones I'm busy preparing for sowing and planting into. As I was digging the carrot bed (sharing with garlic) yesterday evening  I tossed up lots of nasturtium seeds that were at various stages of germination. This is a good sign! Soil temperatures are improving as nasturtiums need in excess of 20 degrees Celsius to germinate. According to the carrot museum carrots need at least 10 degrees C to germinate. Excellent! We can get started with the first sowings (early March sowings can avoid the dreaded carrot root fly) and its a root day too on the bio dynamic calendar.

I have tried lots of methods to prepare the ground for carrots but this is what I find works best. Id really like to know how the rest of you grow carrots if you are on heavy clay like mine that is naturally inhospitable to carrots!

 Add Sand

blue sand on the carrot bed

This I did in early February. At home my Father has an unshakable faith in blue sand. It was always drawn in for use growing turnips and was reputed to get wet when the tide was coming in back at the beach (no matter how far inland it goes!). I know this sounds cracked, but everyone in the locality believes it so who am I to argue with them?

Anyway this blue sand really is good stuff, its probably full of certain mineral rocks that make it blue in colour and directly feed root crops well. I tried it last year and it worked a charm. I just collected a bag of it emptied it over the surface of the bed and left it there.

I rang my sister in the Department of the Environment to cover my arse on the legalities of getting a bag of sand from the beach. She is looking into it but she did tell me that technically beaches listed as SAC's (Special areas of conservation)and SPAs(Special Protected Areas) cannot be interfeared with in any way, so you cannot take sand, seaweed  etc from them.

I'd say they wouldn't mind if you took away the rubbish though. The amount of crap that washes up on beaches, or is left behind by visitors is really appaling. When I was in school at Spanish Point we had a careers conucellor who regularly took the whole class down to clean the beach of rubbish. I remember her embarrasment when we found the remains of someones romantic night time picnic-used accessories and all!!! She never gave much careers advise but we got  a good grounding in litter awareness and sex education. Ah the good old days.

Dig in the sand

let the sweating begin!

So now we come to the sweaty part-digging in the sand and digging the whole bed to at least the depth of your spade, removing stones, and breaking up clods until your powedered fine particled soil becomes what experts call "a fine tilth". You wont catch me digging beds like this for any other crop. In fact I dig as little as possible to preserve the fungal network under the soil that is so essential to every plants success. As soon as the white fungal roots feel the fresh air they die so be very conservative with your digging, it will spare your back too!

Its amazing the crap you can dig out of one bed. Apart from stones, odd weeds and sprouting nasturtiums I took an army of wood and nails. Come to think of it there was a ridiculous amount of old worn timber and rusty nails. How were there so many in this bed and where the hell had they come from?

Gold dubloon

Suddenly I got excited. This was one of the beaches whose currents came from the resting place of the Armada wrecks. Was I looking at the washed up remains of the San Marcos trapped in the sand for  400 years? Each spade could at any moment bring up a gold dubloon. It was like being on time team with Tony Robinson! I dug more and more thoroughly, sweating buckets with the enthusaism reaching fever pitch.

Half way through the digging of the bed the penny(or gold dubloon) dropped,this bed was the beneficary of recycled compost from Mungret which has a lot of wood chip and nails in it.

Well feck it anyway!!!!

( I have given up swearing for lent, feck does not count) Dreams of sunken treasure sank, and it was back to digging, with sadly no gold dubloons to look forward to.

guess what? its just crap, not the keel of the San Marcos