The 'What I Did Today' Archive - 2007

[zazen999]

Harvested as many of my sad and sorrowful courgettes as possible, mainly to get the next lot growing.
Hacksawed and chopped my way through the apple tree mess, did so much cutting with secateurs, that i now have a blister - great!
Will obviously be out again later tonight, if the rain keeps off.

Oh yeah - forgot - had to chop down the foliage from ALL my potatoes due to blight.
However, a few toms are going red, and they aren't in a greenhouse but in pots in the courtyard -so some good news at least.

[rustylady]

No lottie today, due to other commitments. Cut the manky foliage off the greenhouse toms (botrytis I think, hope it's not blight), moved the guinea pig hutch so they can eat some more of the grass that's too long to get the mower on (and too wet anyway). Picked up fallen apples and bits of apple tree that came down in the wind and rain yesterday. Hoping to get to the lottie tomorrow. Have picked first runner beans a few days ago and hoping for more. More spuds to dig.

[Madasafish]

Picked another 1.5kg rasps.
Looked at grass : wet.
Picked beefsteak and GD and Sun toms
Side shooted toms.
Removed netting from strawberry bed.

1 turkey hatched: noisy brute!

[wellie]

Like rustylady, I cut off the manky foliage (grey fluffy mould = Botrytis) from the big greenhouse tomatoes, and thinned out a lot of the healthy foliage to allow more air circulation, and also nipped out their 'armpits' too (side shooted like Madasafish).
Harvested two black sweet peppers (cool!) and a Smug Trug-full of ripe tomatoes for oven-drying.

[sewer rat]

sorted out tomato plants in tunnel, planted out 500 lettuces, picked / pulled and sold first of my peas,bunching carrots and onions

[Mrs Dobby]

Spent 6 hours on the plot yesterday, dodging the rain for most of the time!

Harvested 23 more cherry toms, 2 more cucumbers and our first aubergine!

Spent most of the time weeding and planting out the last batch of outdoor tomatoes, hopefully if the weather improves we may get a bit of a crop off them, but if not then the greenhouse toms are now coming good!

[pigletwillie]

We were supposed to go visit Wellie and Trousers but as the M5 and 42 were lammed solid until late afternoon we adandoned that one with great regret and spent all day doing bits and bobs, the only gardening related thing was putting a trug of tomatoes into the dehydrator to preserve as "not really sun dried tomatoes".

[Salina]

I got some things done today before it started raining, which it has just a few minutes ago and I have to walk the dog's in it lol. oh well!

I took lots of cuttings from the honeysuckle bushes and also some small little bushes and a big yellow bush that has pink flowers on it. (I have no idea what they are called, I'll have to take pictures of them and see if anyone on here can identify them lol!)

I re-potted some courgette plants that have been living in tiny pots into larger pots, and also planted one in the ground to see what will happen.
It's weird because the large courgette plant that has never been pot bound is now really big, but no flowers, yet the ones that have been pot bound are starting to grow flowers?! Weird!

My tomato and turnip seeds still haven't arrived, it's annoying now because the seed company is only in the next county! about 50 miles away!

I also have a load of lettuce and spinach seedlings that I need to plant in the window boxes because they are getting too big for the trays, but I ran out of soil!

Right, I'm off now to walk the dogs/have a shower!

[HappyMouffe]

Having not been down to the allotment for a fortnight, firstly due to heavy rain and then being on holiday, I was surprised to see it hadn't floated away. Loads of weeds, and the onion bed is a small pond, but we are better off than some on the site. Weeded the strawberry patch, harvested lettuce, potatoes, peas, mangetout, a few small carrots and some beetroot. The OH continued scything down vegetation on the new plot, but it's really frustrating as its barely stopped raining since we took it on and it's far too wet to dig.

[Nicos]

Sunshine for most of the day!!
Went to the lottie and dug a row of charlotte spuds, 1lb raspberries, 5 carrots , first 2 toms, lettuce and half mouldy onions.
Had a good natter with another lottie neighbour - and felt much happier on the drive home!!

[pigletwillie]

Well, we finally got off our bottoms and went out to spend some garden vouchers at the local gargen centre.

We spent none there but found two small independant nursery's nearby and bought 16 different herbs at £1 a pot (much cheaper than buying seeds), including 6 types of mint, 3 of thyme, fennels, chervile etc. Also in the boot went some perenial rudbeckia for the front cottage garden, some glazed pots and a clematis for the courtyard and a couple of packets of seed.

When we got home, I potted the mint into 5 litre pots which will be plunged into the beds to prevent them from spreading, pricked out some swede whilst Piglette planted the clematis and pruned some roses.

[Flummery]

Picked and shelled 3lb 10 oz (shelled weight) of broadies. Loads more courgettes ready. Invented courgette, shallot and goats' cheese bake - ace!
Picked peas, planted last of the broccoli, sowed spring cabbage, potted up 2 aubergines left in small pots (but setting fruit) as I've only just got more compost.
Showed grand-daughter the delights of eating mangetout straight from the plant (she's already good at decimating peas!)

[zazen999]

Spent most of the morning helping to load the wood from the apple tree into a trailer for a freecycler, and telling neighbours that there were free apples for anyone wanting to take them. Then set to work on what should have been yesterday's jobs:

Got all the pots out of the ground - the ones out near the canal had blight, and the ones in the courtyard were not doing much at all; bearing in mind that the courtyard ones went in mid april, and the canal ones went in mid may; i hardly got a handful from the earlier ones, but got a load from the may ones; less time in the ground, less numbers of seed potatoes but muchmore spuds - there is no actual science to this at all!

however, made chips with the larger ones today, and the OH's 10 year old daughter asked for more - world record in our house!!!

Anyway,

Courtyard: once pots all dug up, planted 2 tomatillos in one bed and surrounded with onion/carrot/beetroot/coriander seed mix; planted the seed mix in another bed, left bed number 3 free for some heirloom stuff [white celery, strawbini, few herbs, various root veg etc]
Canal side: once pots all dug up, used same mix but with some cherokee bean seeds, some pea seeds and some italian bean seeds in rows [not much of my stuff is ever really in rows, so quite proud when it is].
Used new tool - the swoe - to level beds, and to weed in between now quite heavily growing crops.
used apple tree sticks at the back of one of the 3 sisters beds [more like 7 sisters though as melons, pumpkins, cuckes as well as courgettes, and 2 types of beans with the peas], for all the peas and beans [also slipped some sweet peas in, whoops] to grow up as the sweetcorn isn't as high as it should be [although it is showing good signs with fluffy stuff coming up the middle [not sure of technical name]

i do have some tomatoes that are going red though, i might have mentioned this yesterday - just so glad to see, i never thought i would this year.

[Mrs Dobby]

Got to the plot to find glorious sunshine, which hung around until about 430pmish, when the heavens opened for a couple of hours!

Weeded the broad beans, peas and mange tout beds, then harvested more mange tout, another cabbage, another 5 toms, another lettuce, about another lb of rasps, another lb of blackcurrants, 4 more courgettes (2 of which where cannon ball sized!), about 1/2lb each of 2 types of french beans (first harvest from these this year!), about a lb of blackberries, 2 heads of broccolli and about 1/2 lb of victorain purple podded peas! (first pea harvest of the year!)

Came home and made tea, chops with mange tout, new tatties, french beans, peas and broccolli! Scrummy, only thing that wasnt from the plot was the chops!

[Vegmonkey]

Tied up the runner beans...which are just starting to produce beans,!, tidied up inside the cold frame, dug up a little more of the patio, harvested some carrot and spme spring onion