The 'What I Did Today' Archive - 2007

[Sebbster]

Harvested some more early carrots, a few broads, beetroot, early spuds and some spinach.

Spinach really suffering now, still bolting like crazy and I'm not really getting a large amount of leaves from it, seriously considering digging it up and putting it down to experience. Could use the row to plant my Kale or some more carrots.

Runner beans flowering away and have reached the top of their 8 foot canes. Will pinch them out later in the week.

Harvested my first broccoli so removed the central stem. Will now wait for lots of spears. Have grown far too many but hey ho.

Put it some beetroot "speedy seeds" as we are using quite a lot of the few I have grown.

Cucumbers now about 3 inch long but growing like boomerangs even though the plants are tied up. Doesn't matter though, they will be nice.

Had my first courgette and got lots more growing. Only got 1 plant as the wife doesn't like them.

Onions very large now, Bedfordshire Champs from memory, another few weeks and they'll be ready for lifting and drying, assuming we ever get some sun.

Not sure what the garlic is up to, will lift one and see next visit.

Poor guy who was 2 feet under water is still 2 feet under water and no signs of it going anywhere. Worse than this it flooded his shed and took the petrol and oil from the rotovator and spread it around his plot. Looks like he may lose the lot, pots already rotted. Feel sorry for him, next time I see him I'll dig him some veg from mine.

[Two_Sheds]

Today I returned from Londinium, paddled round the garden, drained the container plant's saucers (twice). Discovered ... OH, THE IRONY...that the water to my flat has been cut off by the pesky builders downstairs. FOR FOUR DAYS!
Do you think I can boil the rain water for a cuppa

[dixeychick]

Today I did very little except the usual walk around the garden just to check what has been eaten and what has grown as it has rained, again, pretty consistently since I got back from work

[sewer rat]

Measured how much water I collected from roof of my shed last night - 75 gallons !!
Finished weeding Maris Peers and Edzell Blues, sowed 600 lettuce in cell trays, sowed 100 calabrese Marathon.
Got rid of last of Young Plants grown for Garden Centre (supposed to have been collected in May !!)
SOLD NEW POTATOES TO MY FIRST PAYING CUSTOMERS

[Farmer_Gyles]

don't post here every day, so over the last few days ...

not done much, mostly watering greenhouse veg every day and pulling the odd weed here and there outside (weed control sheeting keeps the weeds down) - tied up cucumbers / tomatoes etc

yesterday went to garden centre and bought sprinkler and hope connectors (can live in hope that the rain stops!)
sowed swede in small pots / plugs to be planted out when they've grown a bit

hoping rain stops soon cos i want to dig over a patch to sow carrots and beets and plant the swedes out

[Mrs Dobby]

Managed to get down to the plot yesterday, and found ourselves sheltering from torrential rain and thunder storms for most of the afternoon! Did a bit of side shooting in the grenhouse, and watered in there, but other than that, planting out a few chilli plants into Fort Tesco and harvesting more bored beans, rasps, mange tout and courgette, we got nothing done! Desperately need some sunny dry weather for our crops, and desperately need to do some weeding, but its far too wet to even touch the beds!

[moggssue]

Not much happening on my ikkle plot - just watching tatties, toms, broads, cauli, french beans all struggling to grow for me without any sunshine. Retied one of the toms to a bigger cane as it's gone mad and doubled in size and resisted the very strong temptation to furtle in the tatty bag or eat the baby carrots just yet!

[pigletwillie]

I harvested razzers, and a great trug of beetroot for pickling between showers. As a trial I have also planted out some self blanching celery, it will be interesting to see the result as I have never grown it before so fingers crossed.

It was "judgeing" time on all of Leicesters sites today (and tommorow) to find out each sites best plot and those of the city as a whole. We were best plot on our site last year but came nowhere in the city as a whole but have raised the bar this year as the plot has matured and got much better for it. The results come out next week so we shall see.

Back at the ranch I module sowed some cabbage and some more bulb fennel.

[wellie]

I was hoping to get to my Noo Lottie, but we had absolute torrents this afternoon, followed by 10 minutes of gorgeous sunshine, followed by thunder and lightning, torrential rain, then sunshine for 5 minutes, etc. etc. etc. etc.. So I thought my time would be better spent pricking out and potting on at home. I managed to sow two small troughs of the french lettuce mix seed that Piggy gave me at the weekend, and prick out the Florence Fennel seedlings, and pot on the Swede & Kale seedlings.

I DID receive (today because of postal strike) GYO Admin Dave's very kind Let's Grow Veg magazine with ALL those lovely seeds, wallchart, labels, disc, and wow! blown away, thank you SO much Dave. And so I sowed some of those seeds too today. The rest I shall be saving for next year now.

With very few opportunities over the last few weeks to take any photos of 'The Pretty Garden' at home, in between showers today, I did, and have just finished updating the blog.
Thank you for listening.

[JennieAtkinson]

Had a salad of fresh leaves and my first iceburg lettuce for lunch. Splendid afternoon of warm sunshine, so weeded the borders. Sadly alot has died off, so great big gaps now the weeds have gone. Had to keep looking for the dog as she kept going walkies on her own!

Harvested my first pot of Jersey Royals - bit disappointing in terms of size and amount, but VERY tasty. Also harvested my first courgette which I had for tea with a Kohl Rabi (and potatoes and fresh salmon), still on my own so can eat anything I want. Sun went behind the clouds at 5, so watered the borders to give everything a bit of a chance, the ground being incredibly dry.

[sewer rat]

Hand weeded my first sowing of spring onions, hoed my lettuce beds and then hoed my courgette bed.

[Sebbster]

SR, congrats on your first sale, hope many more to come

Didn't get much done after work, spent half the time in the shed sheltering from the persistent rain. Did see a fox about 20 feet away eating something and strolling around the site, so had a cuppa and watched him for a while, no camera unfortunately so no pics.

Had the last potato plant from the first early row so decided to plant out the Kale in it's place. No time to cover it but I will net the next chance I get.

Dug up half the Spinach and binned it, once I had the leaves off.

Planted the last beetroot for this year in place of that I have taken and a few elsewhere also. Pinched out the runners.

Harvested carrots, broads, spuds and some broccoli spears. Noticed the cabbage whites have started to lay on the brassicas so will keep a close eye on those, crushed the eggs that I could see. Also noticed alot of very small white flying things around them, too big for whitefly so will investigate. The only thing they seem to do is leave a small white circle on the underside of the leaves, dont look like eggs so not sure yet.

Couple more weeks and the onions will need lifting, starting to die down now but not quite there. Lifted a garlic to see what was happening, growing nicely but not splitting into sections - not really suprised as I planted them very late. Boy did it smell strong, I put it next to my latest carrots to put the carrot fly off the scent... In fact I will sacrifice my garlic if no good to this cause and will plant a couple more rows of late carrots..

George's allotment has risen in water again after the downpours we've had. My guess is his whole plot is now gone for the year. Cant believe the council have done nothing to help him. Had a walk around the rest of the site and still alot of untended plots, masses of onions bolting on a few plots and 5 or 6 still under water. I think most are fair weather gardeners, or those that have been put off by the recent break in or floods.

[DirtDobber]

Just returned from a short vacation and was out last night as soon as we got in picking beans...the vines were loaded and many many past their prime...we have had rain everyday for so long now and my garden in like a jungle...Since I have so many beans planted, I refuse to use any that are past their prime...I picked and processed 8 bags of beans for the freezer and 3 bags of squash. I have lots of work to do in the garden but wanted to get the fresh and ready veggies in first...

[Hazel at the Hill]

Working this evening, so instead of going to the Hill as I wanted to (especially so, as the clouds have cleared to give beautiful evening sunshine) so I sowed:

• 10 spring onion seeds in each of 6 jiffies (last lot virtually drowned - NOT a success)
• 2 cucumber seeds in a 3" pot - earlier sowings have rotted off, but I will *not* be beaten!
• 1 courgette black beauty seed as I now think that my one courgette growing in a pot in the courtyard will not be enough

Now spending some time 'refining' the sowing spreadsheet, giving it added sophistication!

[shirlthegirl43]

Yesterday got more of the bramble patch dug and cleared and sowed a row of parmex carrots and a row of snowball turnip. Also tidied out the greenhouse and took down the staging to allow tomatoes one side and cucumbers the other side. Much tidier now. Planted the melons into a grow bag and crossed fingers that everything grows.

Today, counted 4 seedlings of kohl rabi through - sowed at final spacing (unlike the carrot and turnips which I hope can be thinned at baby veg size).