What I did today 2020

[Bonjour]

Dug out some of our strawberry/Framberry plants. Pulled up the Mypex that they had been growing through. Sadly the bed has become overrun by bindweed last year, so I'm now digging it over, removing as much root as I can find. Strawbs will go elsewhere and I'll put spuds in the old bed. Hopefully, all the soil moving involved in planting, earthing-up and digging spuds will help deter the bindweed.

[Baldy]

Wired a blue water butt to a metal cistern inside my polygreentunnelhouse - theory being that the water level will be constant in the cistern (has a 'ballcock') so warmish water available. Didn't seem to be flowing through - I've probably blocked it with silicon sealant but didn't have time to check - something for the weekend sir.

[Bonjour]

Finished digging over the old strawberry patch. I now have a mountain of bits of bindweed root to dispose of. After that we harvested a load of self-sown coriander from, and forked over the ground where parsnips will be sown. I'll be chitting those in a week or too and station planting 2 or 3 chitted seeds using the cone and sifted soil method to avoid gaps and forking.

[ameno]

Planted my pear and plum tree at the allotment, along with a new gooseberry bush.
Also finished moving the strawberry plants. I have 33 plants in the two new strawberry patches. The rest of the old plants will be composted.

[Nicos]

Picked up 5 trays of grape hyacinths for 1€ !

[self-contained]

Walked to B&Q and finally managed to bag some seed potatoes (one failed trip before they were actually available and one trip to Wilko where some were available but quality was poor). I've bought Winstons and Red Duke of York, as the most interesting looking of the small-bag first earlies (so they'll all be up before I move again).

I also had a tray of six assorted primroses fall into my hands before I hit the check-out. Not sure how that happened . I picked ones where the flowers were all still in bud, so not sure what colours I will end up with.

[ameno]

Picked up 5 trays of grape hyacinths for 1€ !

Be careful with those, or you'll have 50 trays in a few years time. They seed like mad, and spread underground, too.

[annie8]

Planted out 10 mara de bois strawberry plants and half a dozen bare root raspberry canes - Joan J. As recommended by you lovely people.

[ameno]

Cut down and dug out my old, unproductive apricot tree. Dug out about 1 metre square of soil to a 30cm depth and replaced it with fresh soil from the vegetable patch, along with plenty of garden compost.
Will plant my new apricot tree there as soon as I can.

[ameno]

Dug out one blackcurrant bush and half of my loganberry plant (that was a difficult one to split. Had to use a saw in the end), and also lifted a small, superfluous section of path, to make room for for two new apricot trees.
Planted said apricot trees.
Took the blackcurrant and half loganberry I dug out up to the allotment, and gave them a new home there.

[Chestnut]

Shovelled and barrowed some more stone chips to patch up the potholes in the communal path, bought some seed potatoes and set them to chit.

[Baldy]

Bought 3*50 litre bags of miracle grow compost for £10 - the local GC used to do 6*40 litres of generic stuff for £10 - last year it was 5 bags and this year 4 - so I lose out on 10 litres of compost but according to the bumf on the side of the miracle grow I'm almost certain to get 60% bigger plants (or summat)

I've got quite a lot of stuff going on in my daleks, so I'm hoping that I won't need to buy anymore compost.

Also managed to persuade the water butts to supply water to the cistern in the polygreentunnelhouse - though I've clogged up the proper connection with silicon so will need to sort that so that I can rely on the ballcock to keep my plants in bounteous supply of mildly warm water from an internal store...

[burnie]

Planted out 10 mara de bois strawberry plants and half a dozen bare root raspberry canes - Joan J. As recommended by you lovely people.

I would cover the Mara des Bois with something, I grow mine in a greenhouse up here, they are tender this far north.

[ESBkevin]

Ordered 4 x 2.4M 100x100mm fence posts to replace the broken one and update the other 3 on the wind break we built behind the espalier fruit trees. Other than that I left Carol to start the chillies and peppers in the heated propogator.

[Jay-ell]

Due to work, weather, kidneys and other stuff fist time this year down at the plot.

FINALLY got round to planting the garlic, just at the end of the planting window. The heads have been sitting in the bottom of the fridge since August and some were starting to grow in there. I had just the right amount to fill the bed (208 cloves - hopefully I'll get something this year) Varieties are Elephant Garlic, Early Purple, Extra Early, Provence, Red Duke, Mikulov, Iberian to see if any of these do better tan the rest