Heat Prompts Growth

That a bit of heat jump starts growth is very evident with the Tomato seed which I sowed on Tuesday. By yesterday a few seeds had started to poke their cotyledons above the surface and overnight most of their brethren have decided to join them.

The problem with having the heated propagator on a windowsill is that the sunlight is coming from only one direction and therefore the seedlings will grow towards the light. Some people will place a mirror or even white polystyrene on the room side to bounce the light back and facilitate upward growth. That seems a bit of an effort so I will just follow my usual practice of rotating the trays every day until such times as I take the them out to the greenhouse (unheated).

Co. Down Stoves

 

Dundrum Bay towards The Mournes - 5th April 2013

Dundrum Bay looking towards The Mournes - 5th April 2013

 

The baffle plate at the back of the woodburner required replacement. I had that it might have lasted more than two years, but I suppose that even metal succumbs to the temperatures engendered in the burner.

 

It is a Clearview Burner and unfortunately the sole Northern Ireland agent is based some miles distant in Dundrum. They offered to post me the necessary lump of metal, but it was going to cost me more for postage than the price of the part. Accordingly I determined upon visiting the showroom and purchasing not just the necessary part, but also a spare.

 

It is not the largest of habitations, probably no more than a thousand inhabitants. The views over Dundrum Bay looking towards the Mournes are quite picturesque. Unfortunately a carbuncle of a townhouse and apartment development has been permitted. I think that it is called, "The Quay." A rather different nomenclature comes to mind.

 

Anyhows the replacement baffle and spare are now purchased and the burnt out baffle has been replaced.

 

Main Crop Potatoes Purchased

With my early potatoes now safely ensconced in the ground I decided to purchase my main crop potatoes yesterday. Unfortunately the small garden centre which I decided to patronise was selling its seed potatoes in kilos, but at least they were being sold loose and not in those expensive prepacked net bags.

 

I purchased two varieties, Maris Piper and King Edward. The latter Potato was developed at the beginning of the twentieth century and as this coincided with the coronation of King Edward VII it was named after him by way of commemoration. Not the biggest of croppers it has quite an attractive tuber, creamy coloured with red blushes around the eyes. Maris Piper is apparently the most commonly grown potato in the UK, most probably due to its heavy cropping and resistance to blight and eelworm.

 

I haven't quite prepared the ground for these potatoes and for the moment I have placed them in boxes in the cellar to allow them to chit up.

 

Potatoes Planted

Potatoes take up quite a lot of room in the vegetable garden, but not only do you have them fresh from the garden garnished with mint sauce, but with the right variety they store so well. With a modicum of planning it is relatively easy to have your own potatoes for eight or nine months of the year.

 

I bought my early potatoes some weeks ago, not very many, just sufficient for two short drills, perhaps thirty tops. They were sufficiently, "chitted," by the weekend to allow me to plant them. As tends to be my wont I selected, "British Queens," for my ,"early." Strictly speaking I suppose it is a second early. This variety was developed in Scotland in the 1890's and is now regarded by some as a heritage variety. I have planted the tubers some twelve inches apart with two feet between drills. Weather permitting I would hope to have them in the pot by the middle of July.

 

Tomatoes are Red!

Perhaps a week later than I would have liked, but I did get round to sowing my tomato seed yesterday. The garden centres and seed catalogues have a bewildering selection of varieties for sale. You don't even have to be constrained by the colour red. Yellow and dark purple tomatoes can be yours.

 

Call me old fashioned, ( I am), but in my book tomatoes are red. I don't want yellow tomato soup, or yellow ketchup or purple tomatoes poking out of my salad or sandwich. I want my easily recognisable and traditionally red tomato. With that in mind I chose two stalwarts of the tomato world to grow this year, Moneymaker and Ailsa Craig.

 

Both packets contained about fifty seeds, so even allowing for a few, "no shows," I will end up with more seedlings than I need. I usually grow on two dozen plants. The seed trays are now safely ensconced in a small heated propagator on the kitchen windowsill. With the bottom heat I would expect germination to occur within a week.

 

Happy Birthday VAT.

Value Added Tax is one of the blessings that has been bestowed upon us by virtue of our membership of what is now called the European Union. We have now had this tax on our taxed earnings for forty years. Initially imposed at 10% we are now experiencing a 20% hit. For someone who is lucky enough to be taxed at the current maximum rate (50 %) that effectively means that on what are deemed to be ,"luxury," non essential items their marginal tax rate is 70%, exclusive of their national insurance contributions. To put this another way good old value added tax is being extracted from the residual pounds in their pockets at an effective rate of 40%.

 

Consumers don't like paying this tax and suppliers don't like acting as unpaid tax collectors, but this is a tax which will inevitably remain even if we manage to extract ourselves from Europe's clutches. It is just too successful. It raises almost one pound in every seven pounds that flows into the Government's coffers.

 

Who do we have to thank for coming up with inventing the concept of Value Added Tax? Why none other than our continental cousins, the French, ( a nineteenth century German economist may also have had a hand in it). Maybe the Entente Cordiale should not have been signed?

A Yarn from the Raj.- Only If!

Kim. - Rudyard Kipling - Penguin Popular Classics

Kim, what many regard as Kipling's literary masterpiece, was the novel which was most recently dissected at the reading group which I attend. It is one of those books which I have always meant to read, but which I never got round to doing . That is how it should have remained.

 

I suppose that I was expecting a fast moving yarn of daring do in the Raj, a precursor of Bulldog Drummond and his ilk. Instead I found myself wading through a stultifyingly boring walk in the North West Frontier with Kim O'Hara and his Tibetan lama friend. With the introduction to the plot of what is referred to as, "The Great Game," there was ample opportunity to rack up the pace of the story, but Kipling seems unable to move from him ambulatory style.

 

Maybe it was a daring selection for an Edwardian spinster aunt to give her nephew at Christmas but the years have not been kind to it.