The 'What I Did Today' Archive - 2007

[pigletwillie]

It was wet today so I went to plan B.

The tomatoes in the dehydrator from yesterday went into La Parfait jars and were covered in extra virgin olive oil for store, the mushrooms went into the same but as is rather than covered in oil and some dwarf borlotti beans were sown in pots as gap fillers for later.

In the workshop some scrap pallet timber destined for kindling was put to better use and was turned into a lace wing hotel along with a bundle of old bambo canes.

[chrissie the chippy]

I did a bit of weeding today (now that I know what the seedlings look like ).

I had to cover the broccoli with a fleece, I couldn't net it properly and the looked very sad!! And rather bare

The sweetcorn looks great!! I've got a few of those. The carrots and parsnip look like they are doing great, so do the peas and beans

The grass is getting very long again, need to go and buy the battery strimmer....

[Vegmonkey]

Continued to destroy the patio, weeded the brassica bed, and removed the bolted rocket and swede although they were very pretty.

Posted 4 yr planting plan on 'growing techniques' section of website. Epic! But worthwhile I hope to maximinse what we have!

[sewer rat]

Major surgery on all sideshoots on my cucumber jungle, finished last round of pinching up and tying in my tomatoes, went to collect the latest addition (as yet un-named) to the Clan Rat - a seven and a half week old Springer Spaniel cross, took him to vets for check up, took him out to my field, delivered some Lady Christl tatties to a couple of houses, came home , now off to a wedding dance - could be a late start in the morning

[pigletwillie]

Piglette and I were at a friends house whilst she was away and weeded and dug most of the back garden and managed to plant several perenials and a passion flower.

However, on the way there, we released 18 small toads, rescued from a basement at work (escape is only to be mascerated via a pump) on my allotments, by the pool. Hopefully we will get a viable population established soon.

[Hazel at the Hill]

What a fabulous sunshiny day! So at the Hill today I:

• sowed a short row of turnip, kohl rabi and celariac (no idea if this is too late or not)
• planted out some jiffies into which I'd sown half a dozen sp onions
• sowed a short row of carrots and spinach
• thinned a couple of rows of carrot whilst singing la-la-la you can't see me in order to deter the carrot fly

Once home, realised the forecast for tomorrow is less than ideal, so tootled back up to the Hill for some SERIOUS weeding of the 'everything else' bed. Picked salad and peas. Gave some dessert gooseberries to Retired Maureen who can't seem to grow them on her plot, but loves them.

A good day.

[Nicos]

Removed blighted haulms from 10 rows of spuds and dug one row to eat asap. Tubers seem ok at the moment, but will certainly not keep, so we've got some serious spud eating to do over the next few weeks!

Sprayed outdoor toms for blight as they too are showing signs. ( indoor ones ok for now)

Weeded like crazy .
Picked some red and blackcurrants and raspberries and intend to make a summer pudding tomorrow a but using brioche instead of bread!! (yummmmm)

Lettuce starting to bolt although still very small- need to turn veggie for the next few days!

[Flummery]

Chucking it down here - we really got lucky for the village show yesterday in lovely sunshine. This means of course, that I couldn't garden yesterday because I was manning (personning?) the Village in Bloom stall and I can't today because it's piddling down.
Consequently - cooked some gooseberries and updated village website with pics of the scarcrows and the show.
Thought about veg!

[pigletwillie]

We pootled down to the plots and picked a huge trug of finger carrots, well actually most are bigger than a big persons thumb for blanching and freezing. Also in the trug were beetroot for pickling, a cauliflower, lots of currants and an onion.

The last of the golden gourmet shallots were lifted and a score of celery plants planted.

[zazen999]

Totally cut down the tomato jungle, leaving 3-4 leaves max on each plant. At least the toms are flowering, setting and small toms are on the way.
Weeded all beds
Planted next set of Lollo Rosso lettuce
Harvested beetroot and lettuce and onion for lunch
Harvested carrots for tea, chopping down the cilantro to same height as carrot leaves [companion for carrot], using the trimmed cilantro sprinked over next set of carrots to deter carrot fly.
Beheaded the french marigolds [companion for the toms]
Cleared down the fallen leaves of all the brassicas and the musty ones on the courgettes and cucs.
oh yeah, cleared shed loads of slugs and threw them in the canal at the end of the garden.
Picked a pea and ate it whilst I surveyed the day's work
Wished for some sun on behalf of the cucumbers.
Started to work on making the wooden compost bin for the other half, until the cordless drill ran out.

[graham1968]

well in the rain picked broad beans for tea and peas and different coloured carrots and a purple couli oh what a colourfull tea we are having will not know weather to eat it or hang it on the wall in a frame lol

[Mrs Dobby]

We both had to work today, but Mr D got down to the plot for about an hour before work and then got back down there for about 3pm, I joined him at about 5pm, to find he'd harvested the red onions! They were looking as tho they were starting to rot with all the rain, so we decided to harvest them and try to dry those that hadnt start to go to seed on the racking in the back bedroom, so now got a lovely smell in their and about 100 red onions drying nicely! The other 100 or so were peeled and chopped ready to be frozen, so although they wont store normally we should still be ok for use for this winter!

We also harvested about 2lb of mange tout (now frozen), 2lb or so of rasps, 4 peppers, another 6 courgette, more broccolli, 7 cherry toms and about 3lb of blackcurrants!

Day off on Tuesday, so going to harvest our maincrop spuds (as they've died back completely) and a load of broad beans to freeze!

Plot definitely needs a darn good weeding!

[wellie]

We are occasionally lucky enough to be able to 'House Sit' for clients of mine, who have Chickens, Bunnies & Guineas, Coy, Dogs, and indoor fish (and maybe next year, a Beehive... ooh! I'm scared!) and look forward to it in the same breath?
And my point being, that it was just SO lovely to call into the Lottie on the way home to find that everything was fine? (Mother Hen Trousers....) and even more fine back at the cottage. Although the cat deliberately went on the missing list, because she knows that's a classic way to just wind me up.

Because it was raining 'big stylie' I had resigned myself to doing an afternoon of sewing something 'rather unusual', until I discovered that I didn't have sufficient Velcro. I was going to make my very own 'Privvy' for the Allotment, and now I shall have to wait until tomorrow, to get the required metres of velcro for my 'cunning plan'. So, for those of you who are genuinely interested , there should possibly be a tented LULU on my lottie next week.
But then again we've got The Piglets to sty........ stay.
Shall we see how the week pans out?
Thank you for listening....

[heebiejeebie]

Went to the lottie "for a look" again yesterday and came back with spinach and courgettes. Made curry.

[mad_djg]

Was busy on the plot at the weekend harvesting, digging, sowing, planting.

Harvested 7.5 kg spuds (Bonnie), french beans (and put first lot into freezer), rocket, radish, last couple of beetroot from the first sowing, cleared some carrots and pulled all the onions - they'd flopped over a couple of weeks ago and I'd spotted the first few starting to succumb to rot.

Finished digging the bit where I intended to and then planted out & netted some red cabbage and the few leeks I'd sown - didn't do many as I really wasn't how much space we would have - probably should have done more.

Planted more carrots, finished the packet of beetroot seed, some more lettuce and some more Pak Choi.

Started thinking about next year and did some highly scientific measuring using the world renowned "boot scale". For those who wish to use it 1 "boot" (being size 7 or 8, black, army style) is approximately equivelent to 11.5 inches - pretty certain this scale will always be available whereas tape measures seem to disappear just before I want to use them.

Finally managed to get a bit of hoeing and weeding done. Went home opened the wine....