Grow Your Own Magazine

Tidying up my shed at the weekend (built myself a nice new shelving rack I did!), and I found a coil of this stuff: http://www.polypipecivils.co.uk/pp_h..._frame_03.html

I have about 10m of it left over from when we did the garden last year. It's about 100mm dia and as I say, in a coil about 5-10m long.

I'll get to the point now...

What I was thinking of doing, was cutting the coil up, into shorter lengths - say 200mm to form short "tubes". Then place these on the ground and pack them in slightly. Once my carrots (or other root veg) are at a stage where they need planting out, plant one in each of the tubes, therefore avoiding "stubbies" hopefully?

Waddya reckon? Mad as a box of frogs?

sounds like a good idea to me - don't show growers use drainpipes and such like to get super long carrot and parsnips?

That would certainly make sense. My "pipes" are ribbed (insert pun here) so maybe would retain the water better?

I'll take some piccies tonight to show what I mean.

Show growers use drain pipes etc filled with finely sieved compost to grow exhibition root crops. Some people also use drain pipes round leeks instead of earthing them up.

Maybe you will grow the first ribbed carrots!

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I used bits of piping (no ribs ) last year to grow leeks in and it did the job very well.

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And when you're back stops aching,
And you're hands begin to harden.
You will find yourself a partner,
In the glory of the garden.

Rudyard Kipling.

Old boy on one of our sites does exactly what you propose for his show carrots and parsnips.

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Got home last night and set about making my carrot "sleeves", here's what I started with and ended up with....

And they're orange! How co-ordinated am I!?

Thought you might like to see my new shelves too, I'm rather proud of them. Gives my babies a new sleeping place too. Courgettes need repotting now (must rememmber to take my vending cups home!!).

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