What I Did Today Archive 2008

[Snadger]

Lovely sunny spring day here today! Took all the newspaper protection off my chitting potatoes in greenhouse as no frost is forcast for the forseable future.
Dug in the green manure in my onion bed and gave it a coating of well rotted horsemuck for good measure! I still have some Redbor kale growing in half the bed but this will be finished by the time the alliums are ready for palnting. Going to put leeks in the onion bed this year.
Pulled up the last of the brussel sprouts and gave them to my allotment neighbor for his chooks to peck at. Raked the area and gave it a good mulch of well rotted horse muck.
Took the netting off my curly kale and weeded and tidied the bed around it.
Knocked in a few pins to hold the carpet down where I'm using it for paths. With the high winds we've been having I'm sick of retrieving strips of carpet from next doors allotment
Harvested some calabrese, turnips,swedes and a couple of cabbages! I can thoruroughly recommend the clubroot resistant variety of cabbage as they are flavoursome and stand well for months!
Watered leek and onion seedlings in greenhouse and anything that was looking a bit dry in my other greenhouse.
Finished the day by having a small bonfire to burn my herb clippings and a few more bits and bobs which wouldn't compost. The smoke was very aromatic!
While I was waiting for the fire to die down I had a bit of a hoe in the Japanese onion and cabbage beds.

Home now, with a £1.99 dressed duckling which I thought was a bargain at the local butchers and looking forward to having it with a few allotment veg for my supper!

PS On the way home I called at Lidl and bought a bare rooted pear tree and a packet of supposedly very large growing carrot seed! I cannot pass a stand of veg seeds without buying something...........there is no cure for my addiction!

[heebiejeebie]

Wonderful day for gardening!

Dug and weeded in the flowery bit, planted some new roses bought from Wilko this morning. Sprayed the existing roses' new growth with soapy water because the greenfly are here already. Divided some ornamental grasses that I bought last year and let grow on a bit so now I have twice as many to plant out

[bridget mc laughlin]

Today I started to dig in my green manureand made some more lambing pens

[seasprout]

Today.

I Mowed my LAWN. Ha.

[pigletwillie]

We took full advantage of the weather today, Kazzi finished preping the last few beds on plot 1. That is now weed free and ready for sowing.

My nephew arrived with his monster rotovator mid morning and used it on our new half plot which had been cleared and ploughed in the autumn. Once this had been done we made some permanent bean beds out of scaffolding and fitted the canes to one.

A plot neighbour was taken ill with a stroke last year and whilst up on his feet again, his wife was concerned about him falling as their plots central path was not very wide. This was quickly sorted and he now has steel handrails along the path to help prevent falls.

Finally more slabs were laid and the path betwen our plot and the neighbours is nearly complete, just a few more to lay.

[Hazel at the Hill]

The weather being so wonderful today, I went to the Hill and

• re-dug half the new legume plot - after making a rubbish job of digging in the green manure a couple of weeks ago.
• Planted out 30 bored beans - Teacher Barry asked if they'd been hardened off. Said yes, then when he'd gone covered the plants with fleece - frost forecast tonight
• Dug in green manure on this year's roots bed - parsnip next to go in, but hope to get them away to a flying start in loo rolls - plan to sow very soon.
• Went to club house for beer and sandwich - hurrah!
• Went to GC to buy a bag of multipurpose compost
• Came home and baked Wellies Honey and Thyme chicken, and Cheesy Pinwheels - the latter not as good as those Herself did last weekend.
• Sowed 4 types of pepper, along with a few red cabbage, cauli, sp onion and lettuce

A good day.

[Mrs Dobby]

Got to the plot for a couple of hours today, harvested lots of fartichokes, 5 big parsnips, red cabbage, 10 leeks, sprouts and some celery, so now going to go and make some parsnip, leek and fartichoke soup, then prep the rest of the veg for roasting for tea tonight with a pork roast! I'm even going to try and get Mr D to make his special rhubarb crumble for afters (with some of the frozen rhubarb that we've still got, need to use it up as this seasons has now started growing!

Considering how bad the weather has been of late, have to say it was gorgeous on the plot, shirt sleeve weather, and looking around it looks like its not going to be as bad as last year to get ready for the growing season, only 2 beds on plot 1 still to dig and some of plot 2 to dig and we're done! Can't wait for sowing time now!!

[middlefield]

I was going to try growing parsnips in toilet roll tubes as recommended on the vine, but I was given some seed by a neighbouring plot holder from parsnips he grew last year and left to go to seed, they seem to have self-seeded widely on his plot, so I've had a go and sowed a row directly to see what happens, I'll do a small amount in tubes and see which is best.

Also laid the rest of the slabs we've reclaimed from a neighbour and now have distinct sections on the lottie rather that the one big mess that it was before. We now have three large beds with the rest of the allotment for an assortment. One is dug and manured, one is 30% dug and will have the potatoes. The third is covered in black plastic and will be left alone until last.

[seasprout]

Beautiful sunny Sunday.

Today I put up this Sparrow Terrace nest box on the side of the house.


Then I sat down on my little blue bench with a coffee............ It has not wintered well, most of the coffee stayed in the cup, the rest stayed on me.
The bench is now the bin.

[hawthorns]

sowed a dozen parsnip seeds into toilet rolls they are in a propagator in the greenhouse. made up some compost with allpurpose, soil and sharp sand mixed in some fish, blood and bone sowed some parmex carrot seed into a container and covered with cloche.

[Hans Mum]

two days at lottie, put pond liner in, cleared raised beds and covered with fleece, put some rubharb crowns i'd 'acquired' in with plenty of pony poo, planted some mini daffs in a old half barrel and chatted to loads of people on the sites, lots of new faces about , fab weekend now sat with glass of red while OH cooks roast beef & yorks pudding, life is good

[pigletwillie]

We were originally going up to the plots this afternoon but ended up staying at home.

Anyhows, in the greenhouse some divided dahlias were potted on to provide some cutting material in a month or so. Then it was onto the potting bench with some stuff sown in pots for later pricking out (cabbage- red and green, cauliflower) directly into pots (spinach and rainbow chard) and into modules for planting out in clumps (spring onions, dill, flat leaved parsley and chervil). Most of the tomatoes are now pricked out with just bloody butcher to do.

Lastly some chrysanthemum cuttings were taken and struck into small pots.

[heebiejeebie]

Planted the "red hot poker" I bought last year and never decided where to put it. Also planted the Christmas Rose now I know it's white beside its purple cousin that I have behind the apple tree. Uprooted some sedum and some euphorbia and potted it up. Attempted to propagate two of my dahlias and my peony. If it works, it works... Also uprooted some varigated ornamental grass and potted it.

[shirlthegirl43]

Planted up 2 redcurrant bushes, one from Lidl and one from Wilko budget range - cost a quid and good shoots on it too! Planted up a blueberry from Lidl which had no root worth speaking of and looks pretty dead really, will wait and see if it does anything but don't hold out much hope.

Admired my 4 autumn calabrese that have popped through, and lost count how many sweetpeas have sprouted. Enjoyed the sunshine above all else. Can't wait for the garden to dry enough to work in.

[Rockhag]

I didn't do anything in the lottie today (my bad) but I did buy some savoy cabbage seeds, a big box of organic chicken poo pallets, some new gardening gloves and a pair of wellies.