These will soon be rooted up and well on their way to being full plants

Get out the scalpel

Damn these buggers grow fast! Less than a week after we put the tubers on the benches and they'd already started to throw off new shoots so it was time for Barry to get his scalpel out. Different people grow dahlias in different ways. Some, like The Mighty V, just leave the tubers in the ground and let them regrow ( if they survive ) the next year, but the plants start looking crap by the third year, so I'm always replacing them with fresh ones. Others, mainly the yanks I believe, split the tubers into individual "chicken legs" and then plant each of them up, which allows them to get about 1/2 dozen or so off each parent plant. We just throw the whole tuber into a tray, water it and then take cuttings .... lots of cuttings ... from the first flush off about a dozen Trelyn tubers we've already taken 70+ cuttings, which is about all we need for this year, but we could easily get a couple of hundred more if we needed them.

When you take cuttings it's really important to to make the cut directly below a leaf joint as this is where next years cuttings will come from, assuming you want to take cuttings next year of course but we always do. They're easy enough to root up, if you have some rooting powder then just dip them in that and them slap them in some seed compost. If you haven't got any rooting powder then just slap them in some seed compost. If you haven't got any seed compost then just slap them in some compost ... as I said, it's real easy ... then stand welllllllllllllll back, because these buggers grow like there's no tomorrow.

Each of the trays holds 77 cuttings, so we're about half way there

The greenhouses

The large greenhouse is now cleared, so during this week I'll be rotovating it ready for sterilising the beds next week. Then I'll be doing the same in the small greenhouse which means that I need to get all my seedlings hardened off ready to move into the top end of the large greenhouse so that they don't get killed as well. It's taking me a fair tad longer this year than normal as I've been a smidge ill for the last few weeks and haven't really had the energy needed, but we seem to be winning so far. I'll also be dropping the sides on the large greenhouse to help keep the warmth in and the wind out as the sterilising agent needs the soil to be over 10°C before it's active ... cool, I'll be in my shorts in no time :D

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We finally started!

We finally got round to sparking off the dahlia tubers this week although, like everything else to do with the dahlias this year, we're a fair tad behind as some of them should have been started a month ago. Unlike growing veg, or non-show flowers, this may come back to bite us on the arse as everything about their life cycle is strictly timed and we may have just irreparably screwed up that timetable, it pretty much comes down to how fast they start to throw cuttings. With a tad of luck everything will work itself out in the long run but if it doesn't then it's not the end of the world as we're less interested in showing this year due to other time constraints, so it's mainly about preserving our varieties. The fact that this is also our last year as world champions, and we have no hope of defending our title as they're being held in Canada this year, doesn't really help I guess.

And they're off!

I've been around dahlias for years, so I *know* how much they can change from day to day .. hell, sometimes you feel that if you sat there quietly enough then you could actually watch them grow ..... but the speed that the tubers have started throwing shoots is pretty impressive to say the least! We've only had the tubers on the beds for a week and already the majority of them are throwing shoots, even the mary's and bryn's which are normally a tad on the lethargic side when it comes to recognising that it's a new year.

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What happened to week4?

Due to a couple of websites being on a tight deadline I didn't get chance to make a post last week. Not helped by the fact that Scott then dragooned me into coding a new website ( sorry no link as it's not a public release yet ), to help him in his quest for best job in the world. I hope like hell he wins because then I can go squat in Canada for a month ;)

On with week 5

The tomatoes are starting to get leggy again, which is to be expected as there isn't really enough light from the grolux for them. I did take a look at these lights ( Envirolite & Ecolight CFL Bulbs. Note : Javascript is required to display their catalogue :-S ) but at £92 for a twin light setup I have to question the value. Realistically speaking, how long would it take me to recover the expenditure from growing veg / salads / herbs under them? Several years at least I'd guess when you take the electricity consumption into account as well. Anyway, the tomatoes are leggy, although I'm optimistic that I can cure some of that legginess when I next pot them on.

Some of the chilli peppers are also a little bit leggy, although this seems to be more based on which variety they are, some of them are still pretty stout. The good news is that we've started turning on the heated beds in the potting shed so I'll soon be able to grow them on there where they'll have the benefit of real daylight. Of course, that means I need to find some gaps between all the dahlia tubers which will soon be rapidly filling the beds.

Yet more seeds sown!

Whilst I've sparked off a fair few seeds early to try and get a jump on the season there are some seeds that need sowing now. So in the last week I've started the first lot of cabbages ( Rouge Tete Noire and Greyhound ) and Broccoli ( Quick Heading and Summer Purple Sprouting ). I'll be successionally sowing both of these for the next few months so that I don't end up with a huge pile of cabbages all at the same time. Some time over the next week or so I'll probably start chitting my spuds as they take up to 6 weeks before they're ready for planting and with a tad of luck my lil patch in the corner will be dry enough for them by then.

Planning for winter!

I know you may think it's a tad early, but I'm also starting to plan what I can grow in the beds through the winter months. This is a new one for me because our lil patch in the corner isn't really suitable for growing much more than leeks through the winter months, but this year I'll have 5 more beds, that are under cover, to use. That's about 130 feet of 3 foot wide beds! My intention is to use the beds in our lil patch in the corner to grow leeks, I think I can get about 500 in them which should be enough to see us through to next year. In fact, I'm pretty sure it will as we're still eating last years leeks and I only planted about 50. Of the five beds that are under cover I'll probably use 1 for winter cabbages and 1 for spring cabbages. I'm also considering planting a couple of varieties of Kale and I *think* you can also grow lettuce, beetroot and spinach through the winter, but I'll need to look into that to be sure. Basically anything that I can grow through the winter that can be timed to take up an empty bed will be considered.

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