What I did today 2020

[muckdiva]

Just recovering from sowing loads of flower seeds from the 2019 Seed Circle yesterday. If they all germinate I’ll be seriously space challenged

Today’s job of planting out my French beans was much easier....

Noticed that Mrs Blackbird has yet again pulled all the mulch of my raised beds, bless her, hehe.

[ameno]

Repotted six of my pepper plants.
Weeded the carrots and beetroot.
Mulched the strawberry beds with newspaper.
Noticed that the sparrows were eating my newly planted peas, so covered them with mesh.
Started laying out and fixing down the black plastic (well, opened out compost bags) I'll be used to plant my more tender crops through.

[Plot70]

I did a bit of catching up on that half day I lost due to that broken fork.
I uncovered my runner beans to see if they had recovered from the first frosty night that took off the first two leaves on most of them. It looks like most of them will come back. I used 5L cooking oil bottles.
I took the slug guards off the corner plantings of kohlrabi and found a few dead slugs and covered them and the remaining pellets with manure to stop the birds finding the slugs as no more have appeared for a week or so so they have rotted enough or been taken by worms so will not to attract anything.

[Bonjour]

Potted on some of the peppers into final pots. Evicted the remaining new spuds from the greenhouse and put tomatoes in their final positions, removed side shoots and tied the plants with strings up to overhead wire. Did the greenhouse hokey-cokey with runner, butter, and climbing French beans and gherkin cucumbers. Planted out more iceberg lettuces. Lots of hoeing and hand weeding. Lots of watering.

[ameno]

Ripped out last year's lettuce plants, refreshed the compost, and sowed three tubs of salad leaves (one mixed lettuce, one spinach, one kale).

Sowed another short row of carrots.
Laid out some more black plastic for my tender crops. That's about two-thirds of it down now.

[Plot70]

I finished weeding my fennel bed and watched a female blackbird collect so many worms from the freshly turned soil that it could hardly fly back to the nest.
Watering had to be done too.

[ameno]

Put my squash, courgettes, melons, tomatilloes, sweetcorn and sweet potatoes out on the patio to harden off. They'll be out there full time now for a week or so, then be planted out.

Planted out my 6 tomato plants at the allotment (saved seeds from Mountain Magic, so we'll have to see what they end up as).
Planted out my masses of bean plants at the allotment, all climbing beans:
-18 Enorma Runner beans
-20 Spagna Bianco runner beans
-13 Coco blanc French beans
-13 Cobra French beans
-14 O Del Papa lima beans

Some of the runner beans were over 3ft tall (I definitely sowed too early), so needed pruning when I planted them. They were pretty pot-bound, too, and had loads of side-shoots growing.
The Cobra are for green beans, the rest are all for dried beans.

[Frana]

Finally took my sweetcorn out of the cold frame they'd grown to call home and planted them out in their new outdoor positions!

[ameno]

Planted out 5 more mangetout at the allotment.

Netted the strawberries to keep the birds off.

Gave everything a good soaking.

[peanut]

Finished adding home compost to the new no dig veg beds. Covered my peas as some cheeky bird decided to try and pull them up.

[ameno]

Finished adding home compost to the new no dig veg beds. Covered my peas as some cheeky bird decided to try and pull them up.

I've had to cover all of my peas, too. It's sparrows. I saw them doing it on a neighbours plot: they nibble at the leaves. They do the same to beetroot, too, although they don't see to touch anything else.
It's just a good job peas are self-pollinating, as I don't have any spare fruit netting (used it all for the strawberries), so I had to use scaffold debris netting, which will obviously keep bees out, too.

[Nicos]

Bought bags of potting compost for my tomatoes.
They will be outdoor ones but planted in Black flower buckets

[ameno]

Transferred most of my pepper plants and my 5 winged bean plants to the patio, where they will harden off for the next week, before going up the allotment.

Cut the grass paths in my garden with shears (it was 2ft tall in places), and then fed all that, along with some hydrangea and fuchsia cuttings, into my shredder.

Took the shreddings up to the allotment and mixed them into the compost bin. Noticed I had some mushrooms (inkcaps of some sort) growing in the compost bin.
Watered
Dug the unplanted section of the brassica bed again. I already dug it in March, but since then a whole load of horsetail has come up.

[Bren In Pots]

Planted toms, marigolds and basil into GH border then weeded parsnip bed.

[bario1]

Planted out 15 kale plants and 4 sunflowers - gave everything a water. Picked some radishes.