What I did today 2020

[JustPotteringAbout]

I went to clear dead foliage but found Coccinell beetles overwintering, so I'll leave the garden tidying until the end of overwintering.

I've moved onto the more critical job of sorting out my seed boxes, clearing out long-expired seed, ordering spring sow seeds and updating the seed inventory spreadsheet. I'll need to find a pot luck patch to sow expired seed.

I'll finish painting carbon steel long tool heads and oiling the handles. They've taken on a lot of raw linseed oil, far more than the once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year then once a year axiom.
Coating propagation tray carry boards with linseed oil. It's just 6mm ply wombled from the carpet shop skip but it stops the prop trays flexing too much and the denser ones breaking.

I'll be glad to have the house clear when sufficient paint curing time has passed..
Oh wait the house is never clear of garden stuff.

[JustPotteringAbout]

the other day:

Limed the beds
Dug in dead green manure in alliums bed and transplanted garlic from plug trays.
Sowed more garlic bulbs which were sprouting in 7cm pots
Thinned out blackberries and chopped up for eventual composting . Cut last year's growth back too far
Painted an old door for use as bench top.
Replaced a broken glass on greenhouse vent window and one roof panel with 4mm twinwall. !0mm would be better.
Planted tulip bulbs I'd forgotten about.

[self-contained]

Not a great deal, but I'd put some peas in to soak yesterday, so had to get those sowed. They are just marrowfat peas for cooking, but they make decent pea shoots (though a little fibrous compared with peas specifically for shoots). Unfortunately, I had put them to soak in quite a narrow jar and the bottom third of the peas had become completely wedged in place when they swelled up! Hoping I didn't damage them to badly when I pried them out.

I've also washed some trays to improve the set up of my growing table upstairs. Lots of space for other plants currently. I picked up a supermarket parsley plant this morning too. I've never had any luck growing it from seed (though my parsley seed is probably 15 years old, so I don't think it's my fault!) but hopefully this will keep going if I repot it into a larger container. I just need to get round to potting it on before it dies. It is a Lincolnshire grown plant according the the label, so it felt like a good choice.

[ameno]

Cleared the area around the stump of the bay tree, ready to dig it out. There was a thick layer of compost there, from years of leaf litter, but also loads of bindweed roots in the compost.
Started trying to dig it out. Lots of thick roots. Cut through several, but the stump is still rock solid. It's no thicker than the willows were, and I dug those out pretty easily, but I can tell this one will definitely give me trouble.

Carted most of the bay top growth back home, so I can shred it.

[Guest]

Made lots of fat parcels thin, ready for posting

[annie8]

Cleared the compost from an entire Dalek compost bin and spread it in my front garden where the soil is rubbish.

[self-contained]

I've trimmed back all the rotting/frosted bits on my poor dragon-fruit plant. I sowed the seeds from a fruit I ate in 2006 and it's survived immense neglect as a houseplant ever since (months between waterings, no problem). It's always seemed pretty much indestructible. Until I moved house and forgot to bring it inside rather than leaving it in the crates with the outdoor plants that moved with me. Turns out that cold weather/frost is kryptonite to dragon-fruit plants and it's almost completely rotten. However, there are a couple of areas that look salvageable, so I've cut everything else away and am hoping that it will recover and put out some new growth in the coming months. I'll probably break off a piece with some roots on and try putting it in a fresh pot to avoid it staying connected with a rotten root system.

Fingers crossed that it will rise from the ashes like a phoenix!

I've also moved up a tier on my wormery. That means I have one full tray ready to use and one that will probably be completely ready in a couple of months. I haven't really used it for much so far - just as a mulch for my rhubarb and gooseberry, but looking forward to using it more once I have a proper long-term garden. Despite quite a bit of neglect in recent months, my worms still seem pretty happy and I have lots of them. I think the amount of torn up paper I put in there has kept them ticking over (it's where I put all of my confidential waste because the worms do a better job of making it unreadable than any shredder ever could). If anyone has been thinking about getting a wormery and hasn't quite got round to getting one, I highly recommend it as it's so satisfying seeing all the beautiful high quality dark rich worm castings forming.

[ESBkevin]

A bit late, but the espalier fruit trees got finished pruning and we repositioned the three water butts that had sat on pallets which have rotted through and become unsafe. A five minute job that took over an hour!

[ameno]

Shredded most of the big bay tree I cut down a few weeks ago (a few branches were a bit too thick), along with cardoon stems. Will take up to the allotment tomorrow, to compost there.

[Starch]

Still constructing the new greenhouse, why is everything so bloody complicated Arg!

[elsie-scot]

5 mins of weeding - it all adds up!

[burnie]

I went to Dobbies you might remember I said I wasn't growing tatties this year, no room for them...………………...no?...……………………….me neither bought a bag of Red Duke of York, I'll find a place for them somewhere.

[ameno]

Collected a couple hundred kilos of free sand (it was surplus being given away near me) for my allotment.
It's got bits of gravel and other debris in it, but it was free, so I can't expect too much. I riddled about a third of it today, and took about two litres of waste back with me.

[mrjarraman]

Finished our 8 raised bed. Finished Greenhouse. Allotment starting to look good now. Still cant show photos as not enough posts.

[ameno]

Managed to dig out the bay tree. Not quite as difficult as I was anticipating, but still hard work.

Also dug, weeded and prepared a patch for transplanting my loganberry into later on. For now, I've dressed it with sand and seaweed and just left it.