Episode 5. Late February
Cleaning Schedule phase 3
The start of the dreaded pot washing season is up on me now as I
cannot put it off any more. What ever happened to “Bob a job week” when
the scouts came round doing odd jobs for 50p!
For £1.50 I could have had
- x1 brushing the pots out – x1 washing the pots out – x1 rinsing them
off and stacking so they can dry off – my own mini production line so to
speak.
I know Alan Bryce told me that he had not washed a pot in 30
years!! He used to let the frost get at them to kill anything that could
have been lurking around; he is not the only grower who does this. Since
I clean everything else I might as well do the pots as well.
The days are getting longer now so I can spend an hour or so after
work each day slowly working my way through them as the tubers don’t
need “touching” yet.
Adult
Tubers & Large Cutting Tubers
If something goes wrong with your propagating unit’s
temperature control unit or heating cables and you don’t spot it
straight away then you could easy lose a week or two of growing time.
This could leave
your tubers sitting in cold damp compost for a period
of time, which is the last thing you want to do. The usual time for
problems to occur is the back of the year when the propagators are not
being used, so when you fire them up at the start of the year the light
on the thermostat box might be on but the thermostat control or heating
cable
might not be working.
Now the smart thing to do is to at this stage is to check
that the propagator is working properly and the heat is being generated
equally across the unit. The way I do this is by using a cheap digital
food probe to probe the compost / medium all over – at present the
temperature is ranging between 22° to 22.5 ° and I am happy with that. As
well as this I have a couple of thermometers placed around the
propagators as well.
My adult tubers and large cutting tubers have been in since Sunday
16/02/2015 with the propagator set at 25 ° Celsius (approx.77 °
Fahrenheit).
1st
Potting preparation
Now my tubers are in and the clock is now ticking so to speak, to
when they will be ready to be potted on. I now have to make sure I have
got all my ingredients ready to make my own John Innes No2 mix fresh
when it’s required.
This mixture consists of:
Kettering Loam – clay content of 32%
Shamrock Course Medium Peat
Alpine 4mm Grit
Sharp sand
Vitax Q4
Garden Lime
Dolomite Lime
Nutimate
Calcified Seaweed
This list will no doubt lead to a few debates with some growers or
bloody hell he does what!! from others.
Well I will explain my mix in more depth in the next chapter when I get
my first mixes ready. You cannot beat the feeling of potting up begonias
in your own homemade compost. The only downside is you cannot blame the
compost when things go wrong!!!! only yourself.
‘The
Caledonian Tours 2015’ Tour No 2
Less than x2 weeks to go until Sunday 8th
March and another drive north of the border for the Scottish
Begonia Society’s 2nd meeting of the year. The speaker this time is Neil
Bragg and his subject “Compost Mixes, Innovations” so that should be
interesting considering the calibre of growers who will be attending the
talk.
Until next time….
