The 'What I Did Today' Archive - 2007

[seasprout]

Saturday.

Watched an episode of the Big Dig on 'Satalight channel' then planted tomato Orange Banana, Cedrico, sante, gardeners delight, and some weird one from a seed from a distant releative from Poland into Grow Bags in my NEW greenhouse, also sweet pepper World Beater and Pepper 'Oro' and pepper orange Banana into growbags into the NEW green house as well.

And an Obergine. Never grown these before.

[Bex]

I sowed a couple of Orange Banana Tomato today as well Seasprout, I also sowed a couple of Lemon Drop Chillis. I know I'm probably late sowing but I only ordered the seeds last week.

Also went to lottie for a couple of hours and did some weeding and watering, where do those pesky weeds come from. Sowed some Sorrel seeds in open ground and some Liscari sativa (Salsola soda) which I have never heard of but it looked nice (its from Real Seeds) Anyone else grow it?

I also noticed today that a couple of my spuds are showing which I thought might be too deep, my asparagus is shooting on one side of the bed better than the other but shooting all the same and my sons strawberries (Marshmello) have flowers on them. Good day in all.

[wellie]

I've finally potted on all the summer and winter squash plants now, which is a huge relief, as watering the 6" pots was getting to be quite time consuming. I had to be really careful when 'upending' the plants to get them out of their current pots, because the stem-neck, where it joins and is rooted into the pot compost, is very vulverable at this stage of their life, with the sheer weight of the actual plant. Curly tendrils and immature male flowers are in evidence now, and the plants are really sturdy.
Do I really need that many?! I had a brilliant idea yesterday.... I'm going to ask my lovely local butcher to 'shift' some of the fruits later in the season, along with some excesses from my garden. The Turks Turbans have sold like 'hot-cakes' at Harvest Festival in the last two years, because no-one has ever seen a pumpkin quite like it before, and certainly haven't a clue what to do with it! (Note to self: Business opportunity)

Trousers 'finished off' building one of the temporary raised beds, which has quite loose soil in it. Shall I grow leeks there?
With 're-jigging' the potager, nothing's remotely following the crop-rotation plan that I devised mid-winter, but at least as the soil settles, I can then 'earth up' as well, she said loudly and confidently, so as she might vaguely believe it (until she has a better idea!)

I've also 'pulled my finger out' and got on with slicing off some more of the turf where I shall be planting my Brassicas this year. It's very compacted soil, and when I've sliced out a core of earth deep enough to 'enrich' with compost/nutrients, each pot-grown Brassica, will be 'inched in', backfilled and TLC'd. Again, like the squashes, they're in 6" pots, so the plants are in fabulous health, but the rootball is in danger of being too restricted, and I want 'steady growth', rather than a stressed-out plant...
Thank you for listening,

[wellie]

Oops.... Spelling error in amongst that lot. Don't spot the deliberate mistake folks. Sorry. Long Day.
My apologies.

[has-bean]

Lovely warm and calm day here in Plymouth so I ignored the self imposed hangover and gave my allotment paths and compost heap a thorough does of round up as the grass was taking over simce i am away a lot. Then realised couldnt walk on allotment so went hom and played in my greenhouse. Repotted a couple of dozen tomatoes in the sunshine and then weeded my flower beds - ok so they not edible and then planned tomorrrows jobs - more maincrop planting and maybe a good watering as working away next week. About to fill in my gardening diary and read up on tomato care as i now have 56!!!

[TonyF]

Weather here yesterday was superb again, too hot to work in the afternoon tho, over 30 again. Sorted out the watering systems, had a general tidy up, revamped hoses/pipes/fittings.

Stared repotting/potting on, put some more herb and beetroot seeds in and then planted out some garlic, onions and started to put the nasturtians (?) in. About 5 o clock started to darken but I'd stopped work by then. As I was going out to a neighbour's birthday party last evening started to water and it peed down, storm for about two hours but was still 25 degrees, lovely warm big drops type rain. So water butts are full again, whole garden had a good drenching.

Got an email from my chumlette who I'm helping with her new potager to tell me that she was up on her plot yesterday afternoon talking to her peas and beans. Looks like another convert.

And this morning looks like another champagne day, lovely and golden bright, we're all off to one of the major plant fairs today then I'm being taken to a really posh restaurant for lunch as a thank you for the help I give people with their gardens. Sounds pretty good all round.

Should have added, started to use the compost I dug out a few days ago as top dressing and raking in - bloody brilliant, using a rotaseive thingy, much easier than an old fashioned riddle.

[Flummery]

Yesterday we sorted out the large eucalyptus tree we'd stooled on Tuesday. Pile of good logs, stack of useful poles for garden support purposes and last evening the family pyromaniac (it's a bloke thing, isn't it?) burnt off all the brash so this morning I had lots of lovely wood ash to rake in. The shortening of the tree meant I could get back onto the border it was taking over and sort out the weeds. Then we finished off the veg beds - no point digging and raking this bit as we'd stand on it to chop the tree! It's all ready now to try the 3 sisters method when my corn, beans and squashes are up to the job. Squashes just getting 2nd leaves, corn just showing its nose, beans still in the compost. Earthed up spuds.

[Bex]

Planted another 40 spuds, varieties Rooster and Charlotte. Did a lot of weeding particularly of the onion beds, where do they all come from.

Inspected the broad beans for any pesky pests, found none but I did find a tiny broad bean pod just beginning to form.

[has-bean]

weeded the strawberry patch then decided to dig up thge old goseberry and blackcurrant bed for spuds as they had been half cleared years ago. Full of bindweed and animal bones. 3 and a half hours just to plant 30 spuds- feel good about myself now though. Still the other half to clear next weeken though. Allotment is a strange brown soily colour for a change

[Kimbo]

Yesterday I planted out three trays of peas and put up wires for them to climb up and transplanted some toms.

Today, I earthed up all my potatoes in pots and transplanted some more toms. Constructed a fleece cover for over my brassica bed using fleece I bought from poundland (£1 for a 1m x 6m piece) and a roll of wonderweb I got from ebay. Brought my chilli's and peppers in from the greenhouse as the slugs/snails had got two last night. Then rain stopped play (so I dont have to water tonight - yipee). Leeks and parsnips in pots in the greenhouse are finally germinating (thought the parsnips were dead) and some more spring onions poking their heads through.

Tomorrow (day off from work) weather permitting will plant out some more peas, prick out and plant out my first lot of radishes (more fleece required I think to help keep out the slugs), pak choi, spinach are ready to go into their raised bed too and finally plant out my savoy cabbage and kale plants in the newly covered bed and if I have any energy left have a tidy up in the garden.

[pigletwillie]

Today we planted out the first 120 piglet banana shallot plants into a raised bed. They have made quite nice little plants with lots of root.

Another job was to fix the hose along one side of our first plot and have taps fastened to posts at 1/3rd and 2/3rds down it. Now instead of dragging a great length of hose around, we now plug into whichever tap is nearest with a 5mtr length of hose and water away. Its neat, easy and so much easier.

Both tunnels are now planted up and all canes are in position as are max/min thermometers so that I can see what the actual temperatures are day and night. Even the peppers planted last week have really grown now that their feet are in the ground. It doesnt seem to matter how big the pot plants are grown in, they mainly seem to do better in the ground.

As for brassicas, 40 brussels sprouts went out today, 20 topline (mid season) and 20 revenge (late season) nicely cosseted under some heavy duty netting. No pigeons will be getting at them I can assure you. They have been very well firmed in and well watered.

An old chap on our site then presented us with two dozen chrysanthemums which have been planted along the front of two of our plots. Lotys of flowers are grown as there is nothing better than being able to take home something bright and cheerful for the vase after a trip to the plots as well as a trug full of produce. The Agapanthus and achilea plants are sizing up nicely and these will be sold next year at our societies stall at the local show, this year all of the spare cosmos, calendula, rudbekia and dwarf sunflowers will be going.

[Norm]

Today I launched 9 dead and partly eaten rabbits over the allotment fence into an unused marsh area. If the fox wants a pantry, it can find somewhere else. Finished planting Maris Piper into tubs. Potted on Marrow, more toms and cucumber. Sowed carrots, parsnips, beet and turnips in a raised bed (BIG raised bed) and wrapped insulation tape around the ends of 50 cains (stops 'em rotting too fast)

[TonyF]

No gardening today, instead went with chums to buy plants at a plant fair. Managed to get loads of veggie plants as well - the stuff which is sprouting will do for second and later plantings. Also bought some other plants for the very sunny dry banks.

And my chums, who have 9 propeties to look after on their estate, bought hundreds of plants, nursery people were falling over themselves to give us discounts for bulk.

And I wont say anything about the glorious weather or the stunning lunch they bought for me!

[has-bean]

Apologies for being greedy and posting twice but just got back from watering and had to share the good news. My 15 -20 metres of parsnips appear to have germinated 4 plants. Am so excited there may be even more than the dozen i got last year. Shame i didnt have my camera

[nick the grief]

Yesterday We planted up 2/3rds of the lottie - Maincrop Spuds, Onions, Sweet peas.

Marked out the beds for the Chrysanths & Dahlia's and dug the holes where the Courgettes are going & filled them with some well rotted muck.

Today I didn't go up the lottie but potted up about 2 dozen spray Chrysanths.

Sowed 40 Gladiator parsnips pre germinated on some damp tissue so they should all go

Took about 40 Dahlia's and a few more chrysanths for CHristmas flowering ( it keeps me in with the Mother in law

And generally pottered - very relaxing.