The 'What I Did Today' Archive - 2007

[heebiejeebie]

Checked that nothing has been nibbling the leaf beet I transplanted yesterday.
Cleared another small part of the far plot of weeds & roots. Marked the next bed with string and trampled down paths. It's hard going! Stood back to admire my work (ooooh me back...) and realised I've done half of the far plot and it doesn't all need such hard work this month as I can't do anything with the furthest strip until the garlic and overwintered broad beans are out. There are a couple of pods on the beans and some of the PSB has survived the pigeon-attack and produced small purple shoots. One of the Arran Pilot earlies is showing shoots
Checked the plastic planthouse and I think I may need to do some pricking out soon.

[Kimbo]

Over the last two days I have, erected another 6 x 4 plastic greenhouse, bought another 2 tier mini greenhouse and 2 lots of 4 shelf staging.

I have sown 1/2 tray of wild rocket and 1/2 rocket, 1 tray of radishes, 24 runner beans, 24 dwarf french beans, 18 courgette seeds (6 each of 3 different types), 4 cucumber seeds and some mixed cut and come again salad leaves.

Tomorrow I hope to plant out 12 broad bean plants, 3 trays of peas. Sow some more jolant leeks and lancer parsnips (the last lot dont look like they are going to germinate so going to try the paper towel method). Sow some sugarsnax carrots and some of the autumn king that were free the other month and if I have time and energy some more onions

[seasprout]

today...

Did 3 hours worth of spraying weeds at work.


Came home and watered stuff, went garden centre 'just for a look' got another grow bag, 3 lilac delphiniums and a rather fine large spotty fox glove.

Sowed beetroot seeds.



Finished reading my life on a hillside by Terry Walton, now about to start on Christine Walkden's effort.

[veggieginger]

Repotted french beans, black beans, and various tomatoes. Nurtured everything else with love and care

Mr V mowed the lawn and applied grass seed, we have been appling a weed remover; as it is more weed than lawn. Hoping to get more cuttings for composter.

[nick the grief]

Today, I did my good deed for the day & helped John (my best man when I was married) to reglaze his greenhouse having built a wall for it to sit on. Damn fine it looks too.

Yesterday I sowed peas (show perfection), dwarf runners (hestia), Courgette's (Defender), Broccoli ( Early purple sprouting & 9 star perennial), Lettuce (Webbs) tooks some more Dahlia cuttings and some Fuchsia's all under the expert eye of The Natch

[yoanbob]

Today we dug a brand new raised bed! (Yup, thats right - FOUR MONTHS Late!!!) Then we burnt some stuff!

Then we pegged out a new spot for the nephews (age 4+7) to grow pumpkins, peas and corn - they're a comin' diggin' on the 'morro!

Then we burnt an ants nest and then we had some ale!

After that things quietend down a tad - so we burnt somemore stuff and had somemore ale. YEAH!

Bob.

[Bex]

Warning, do not carry trays of toms and peppers outside to get the sun when you are half asleep because today, I tripped over my slippers and dropped the tray. I've lost a melon, pepper and tomato. I could have cried.

After I recovered we went to the lottie and watered everything, put the remaining dropped plants in the tent cloche at the lottie to see how they fair.

Dug a couple of beds over to plant some Pak Choi and turnip greens in the morning. Picked the first radish today, the first ever thing to be picked from lottie. Me and my youngest had a nibble each and it was delish, so much better than the ones you buy which are all fire and no taste. Lovely.

Yoanbob - sounds like a great day, especially the ale part.

[Percy T]

Well all I did today was to dig over my very small flower bed in the back garden again add some compost with the help of my grandchildren aged 3 & 5 hard work I might add.

planted a lot of summer flowering bulbs and waterered them in.

Checked on my seedlings

280 lettice looking a bit strange,elongated leaves and hanging over the sides of trays. is this normal?

[Mrs Dobby]

Mr D didnt come home from hospital today, the Dr said his 'drain' was still draining more than he liked, so he could stay another night, so after talking with him for a good 25 mins I spent a couple of hours sorting out the seedlings this morning, took them all outside and gave them a good watering, repotting on as required (one cucumber is now in a large pot and is in the plastic walk in greenhouse along with the 15 toms we planted up into growbags on Tuesday).

I worked out we now have 41 chillis of varying amounts of 13 varieties growing (at many different stages of growth), 73 tomato plants of 15 varieties (at different growth stages), 13 peppers of 3 varieties, 5 butternut squash, 5 ghostrider pumpkin, 10 sweetcorn plants, 5 red cabbage, 5 white cabbage, 5 PSB, 4 autumn broccolli, a tray of spring onions, a module tray of spring onions (5 per module), a tray of ailsa craig onions, 13 parsnips in loo rolls, a module tray of banana shallots, plus a few other bits n bobs growing away nicely!

Watered the 3 containers and 2 hanging baskets of strawbs, all of which look to be doing well, and watered the cut and come again salad leaf crop thats now at seed leaf stage!

After reorganising the seed staging and taking them all back up to the back bedroom it was off down to the plot for 5 hours!

Hoed virtually the whole plot, lots of annual seedlings trying to get a foothold, plus some mares tail, thistle, dandelion and bindweed trying to surface (tho a lot less than there was when we took the plot over last year), so hoed them all off and will consider using some systemic weedkiller on the individual weeds if I cant stay on top of them!

Then weeded around the strawbs and rasps, looks like there was some goosegrass seeds in with the bark chippings we used as a mulch, so spent a good hour bent double pulling it all out by hand!

Topped up the pond, as the water level has dropped with all of the sun and good weather, still lots of tadpoles (a few with back legs now), plus some more spawn, plus 3 tiny frogs and 4 bigger ones!

Lastly I put up a length of inverted V bean supports (ala Snadger & NTG's explanations on another thread) and planted out 8 each of 3 varieties of climbing bean that Mr D germinated a bit early!

The weather has been exceptional, the temp was up to 23C at 5 pm, hot and very sunny, not quite what you expect for mid April!

Plans for tomorrow include fetching Mr D (hopefully), and planting brassica / squash / salad / herbs / melon / courgette / cucumber / gherkins / sweetcorn, plus the possibility of some more weeding at the plot!

I'll be glad to get back to work on Monday for a rest!

[Nicos]

Spuds finally in!
What a fantastic day
( hope Mr D recovers quickly)

[wellie]

Watered everything in a pot! And boy, do they need it at the minute....
Then, I checked all the seed trays, to see if anything had bothered to germinate since yesterday, and 'bless' they had, yet again... so I made an 'anorak' note of it in my 'Growing Notes', just so as I know what's what next year, so I can LEARN, which is what I love to do for fun, or what's the point, I ask myself...?!
I seemed to chase my tail watering for most of the morning, but once sorted, I managed to plant all the Peppers, Chillies and Aubergines into the Big Greenhouse, to join the already-planted Toms.
And after I returned from feeding and watering one of my clients' cats, armed with 8ft bamboo canes, (nothing to do with the cat, in case you're going to report me to the RSPCA...) I'm ready to construct a framework for 3 Ogen Melon plants tomorrow in the Grown-Up-Girls-Greenhouse.

Then whilst 'wilting' in the heat later, I've planted 12 'mini' cauliflower plants, grown from seed, and have begun to plant my autumn-sown Sweet Peas, AND I've planted up the rest of the herbs I had in the wings for my permanent Herb Bed, I set free a very frightened Blue Tit from the conservatory, and I simply cannot WAIT for tomorrow!
Thank you for listening,

[Peter]

Today I are postly been putting in fencing.
Three posts and snipping back all the stuff poking through the old wire ready to remove it.
Finished a "strainable" section.

[Seabreeze]

Went straight to the builder's merchants this morning and bought timber for the latest, and possibly last, raised bed. Yes, I decided to get treated! After all, we are told that they don't put arsenic in it any longer. Anyway... I most likely will paint all of the beds' frames in a year or so.

It was sweltering today, but I finished the frame 3m x 2.4m and filled it with earth. I use this size because the timber comes in 4.8m and 3.6m lengths. When it comes to planting I have a separate board that I place lengthways (3m) along the centre of the bed, so it's more like traditional 4ft beds, but using less wood.

I got the electric rotovator that a neighbour gave me, wired up, and gave the soil a good go over, both pushing and pulling the machine for maximum effectiveness. Tomorrow I will liberally sprinkle it over with compost and rotovate it again. This year we will use it for spuds and tomatoes.

Tomorrow we are going to try the first of the indoor strawberries. I don't know what type they are because they were taken from old plants. here is a pic. before we eat them.

[veggieginger]

Today we have repotted lentil seedlings, had a good weed and put rosemary, matts wild cherry, sage, oregano, chilli and lemongrass seeds in to germinate. Gave everything a good water as it has been really hot here today.

[nick the grief]

Today I got sunburn Yayyyyy 1st of the year . I have rotorvated the whole plot apart from 8ft or so - I'm now ready to finish the planting next weekend.