Look ma, I'm instagramming!

I hate to be *that* guy, but... well, here are pictures of three meals that I've had this week.

So far, we've had three meals worth of new potatoes, mange tout, nasturtia flowers, some broad beans, spinach and most importantly, carrots that can actually be peeled without halving in weight. We're not quite up and running full-time yet - the portions of vegetables have been minimalistic and the garden is now stripped bare until the next batch matures - but it's the sign of things to come.

I am now planning ahead and replanting for the next lot of food. November to January will require a bit of planning ahead - some of it is going to be winter crops like kale, spinach, chard, leeks and sprouts and some of it is going to be stored vegetables like carrots and potatoes.

Proud as I am of my humungous carrots, I don't think there's going to be too many spares to store if I don't work out how to grow them bigger, so I'm trying a new experiment.

This one comes from the top google result on "growing bigger carrots" and is an allotment diary of someone trying to grow carrots for exhibition for the first time. The idea is that, instead of growing in soil, you fill a box with sand for spacing and drainage, bore holes in it and fill the holes with a special mix of carrot-dirt. It worked for him in that he got some seriously scary carrots out of it, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I'm obviously starting later in the year than the gent on the website, but then again I don't plan on growing carrots big enough to use as truncheons, so I think I should be fine. I bought a big 50 litre tub, filled it with sand and then bored 16 holes using a bit of drainpipe.

I then made up a soil mix for the carrots to grow in. Carrots apparently like loose non-lumpy soil to grow in, so I started by taking some used potato compost and sieving out all of the lumps, twigs, and other bumpy bits. I then added a reasonable amount of bonemeal and some high potassium fertiliser, as these would help replenish what the potatoes had taken and then some. I then sieved in some top soil and some fresh compost before mixing the whole lot in a bucket with some vermiculite (a mineral that aerates the soil and keeps it loose, as well as absorbing water well). In theory, this should be carrot manna. We'll see.

Used a funnel to pour in the mix and letting the whole lot settle down for a day or two before putting the seeds in. I'm planning on having several options to keep myself entertained - orange, red and purple. The amount I've spent on this getup vs the price of a carrot in a supermarket means that I at least need to get interesting colours out of the deal.

Still, if all of them grow to a good size, that'll be 8 meals worth for me, the wife and the youngster, which'll do very nicely indeed. And I guess I can always get another 50l tub or two...

PJW