What I did today 2020

[Small pumpkin]

Cutting down and burning rhododendrons.

[Gillykat]

Busy couple of hours on the allotment.

Potted up perennials ~ 4 x Lupins, 5 x Rudbeckia and 6 x Echinacea.

Repaired hole in shed roof where Storm Ellen had ripped through

Did temporary repair of back fencing where rotten wood has collapsed. Need some proper nails so I'll finish this job later in the week.

Cut back 2 x Buddleja shrubs.

Cut back ugly mallow shrub against fence....will dig it out properly later in week.

Pruned autumn raspberries ~ Joan J

[bario1]

This morning, in the rain, I bailed a couple of hundred litres of water out of my water butt system. Bailing water out seems to be all I have time to do at the plot these days, there's no overflow outlet, so if they overflow, they just inundate the interior of my polytunnel. Usually it's easy to keep on top of this over Winter, a couple of watering cans here and there does the job, but this year is a different story, every time I empty them out, they're full again within days!

[jayjaybee]

Yesterday was the first sight of sun in weeks. Washed pots and seed trays - an ongoing exercise- in preparation for the marathon sowing session. Weeded the 'lawn' of bittercress in veg patch and drowned the weeds in a bucket for weed tea. Sowed beetroot in modules for later planting when soil dries out. Set garlic and shallots in cells, ditto. Considered solutions to the raspberry support system for the coming season.

[ameno]

Finally hammered in my 8ft stakes for the two akebia I planted at the allotment last year.
Also noticed that both akebia have flower buds coming. Maybe I might get fruit this year from them. I had some (which I picked wild myself) in Japan a couple years ago, and they were really nice, which is why I'm growing them myself now.

Sowed all of my sweet and chilli peppers. I plan to have 12 plants of each (two varieties of sweet, and three of chilli).

[Gillykat]

Day off work and glorious sunshine outside.....and I had to stay indoors and wait for repair guy to come and fix our immersion heater I made the most of the enforced day in however by sorting through my seeds into a staccker box of veg/herbs/fruit and one of flowers

Let's just say I doubt I'll need to buy any for quite some time!

Working long shifts for next three days so no allotment work but I'll make a start on going through the veg seeds....some beetroots, tomatoes, spring onions, cabbage etc I have multi packs of the same varieties. I'll keep what I need and give the rest to my local charity shop.

[Dynamo]

Last year was my first attempt at growing Ginger and Turmeric. Although both crops did very well, getting them to sprout in the first place was a chore. With the Turmeric, I placed it in a plastic bag and put it on a windowsill as I'd seen in a couple of YouTube videos, but that didn't work at all and I eventually placed them in pots of compost. This year to try to give them an earlier start I've put the rhyzomes into heated propagation trays. Hopefully this will hurry them along better.

And no, they aren't worms or sausages or pigs in blankets. 😂

[Starch]

Raining all day so decided to catalogue my seeds, up to P and thinking do I really need 5 packets of parsley and 4 packets of parsnips.

[Starch]

8 packets of spring onions

[Starch]

14 tomato 8 varieties

[muck lover]

I am a seed hoarder and I still have a shoebox stuffed with surplus seed packets. They will be picked through by a few friends but mostly will end up at a local charity shop - they are all good, unopened and in date. The only danger is that I go back in and try to buy some of them back - my seed hoarding is a serious disorder!

[Starch]

Me too, final total 167 packets dated 2020 - 2023, better get sowing.

[Starch]

April edition of GYO magazine just arrived with a further 10 packets

[bikermike]

Quick trip to plot to check it was still there, and to take some compostings.

Then an afternoon sowing seeds in the greenhouse - onions, leeks, sprouts, broccoli, 60-day raab, beetroot and two sorts of carrots. Hooray!

[bikermike]

April edition of GYO magazine just arrived with a further 10 packets

Yeah, did they win the lottery or something? It was hard to hide the pile of seeds from SWMBO...