FEELING THE HEAT
Richard Cook our editor some how heard I was in trouble starting off this years
tubers, and it wasn’t for the want of trying; if I’d have pushed that thermostat
knob round any further the underside of the propagating bench would have caught
light. (kidding) Now most Sundays I either ring Jack Gott my mate in Cumbria or
he’ll ring me, but for the last couple of week-end he’d been on the phone. It
must have been customers thanking him for those wonderful pot tubers he sends
out. So when I eventually got through I was delighted, but he sensed I wasn’t
very happy, and asked what was up. I told him the tubers I’d bleach dipped,
although hard as nail wouldn’t start. I’d tried to do an American on them last
autumn, and must have either over done the bleach, or left them submerge to
long. Jack didn’t seem to be all that put out, and proceeded to tell me yet
another country gem he’d acquired in his time nurturing our Queen of flowers.
What he said was this; you have to soften the hard casing that holds back the
new growth. What he said made sense, but how he expected me to lift them from
this limbo state was hard to swallow let alone carry out. He went on to ask if
the water in my hot tap in the house would become very hot if turned on at a
certain speed, and although I wondered why he wanted to know I told him I’d
often almost scalded myself when washing up because of it, and all he said was
perfect. He then asked me if I had a hand sprayer, I told him I had, and he said
fill it with scalding water from your tap, pump it up to get the pressure up,
and spray those dormant eyes three times a day. I must say the first couple of
times I was a bit wary, especially as most of the sleepy ones were second year
seedlings and all I had. Now fast forward two days, and I began to see the
fruits of my labour because tiny green eyes were beginning to break through that
hardened outer layer and come to life. When I phoned Jack to thank him, he
appeared to have known the outcome all along, and told me the even stranger
custom of plunging a dormant tuber into a bucket of very hot water with the same
results. Wonderful things are friends.
Ken Stock.