What I Did Today Archive 2008

[pigletwillie]

Last night we made 12 litres of passata and roasted loads of red peppers to make 2 jars of roasted red peppers. More bean seeds were brought in to dry and a load of penstemon cuttings were taken to give new plants for next year.

[squashman]

Squashman - how did you convert the bin into a composter? Are we talking about a black dustbin? We have about a dozen of those doing nothing at our flats now we have the new wheelie bins.

zazen999 has gone for the scientific and probably superior method.

I am however a lazy sod, so all I did was cut the bottom off it so the worms could work their magic cut a hatch near the bottom to retrieve the compost and fill it gradually.

You have to turn it occasionally but it will eventually all rot down, it will take longer than zazen's set up though which is admittedly more elegant.

[sewer rat]

Today I went see the gardens that I will be looking after during the next 5 months or so.
Start at Mounteagle on 20th October and start at Morangie House at Cadboll tomorrow.
Need to change my forum name to Rat 4 jobs !!
Anyway came home and have just made and potted up 15 x 12oz jars of picallilli.
Tomorrow night I am going to put together a basket of fresh veggies and a selection of my preserves and then I'm off to Wick on Wednesday as the representative of our local Producers Group at the Taste of Caithness and Sutherland event.
If you're interested here are some links to whwre I'm gonna be working over the winter.
The Glenmorangie House Website
Mounteagle Holidays - 4-star Self-catering accommodation in the Scottish Highlands

[BrideXIII]

made a batch of oven dried tomatoes.
made homemade butter.

[FionaH]

Planted solent wight in containers. Note to self: put spares in with leeks and psb. Otherwise I wont remember what they are

[Kayt]

Thanks squashman. That's not being lazy, just conserving energy and keeping things simple I shall certainly be taking a couple of the bins to the lottie and make some sort of composter with them.

[Winged one]

I managed to bring a decent few cardboard boxes to the plot on Sunday, along with the toddler. She helped me to lay them over 2 beds and weigh them down with stones (OH will help me next week to dig over the ground, and we'll throw the half composted contents of the dalek under the cardboard as well).

We brough home a reasonable sized bag of goodies - a handful of brussels sprouts, 2 dinner's worth of brocolli, one dinner's worth of broad and borlotti beans, 2 toddler dinners of peas, a baby courgette, a handful of radishes and a nice handful of baby leeks.

I also managed to gather in all the remaining onions and garlic from various window ledges and the frame of the minigreenhouse over the weekend. They are all for more immediate use rather than storing, so they are in the basket in the kitchen. And then we dismantled the frame to store for the winter again. OH also painted the garden shed with preservative which is supposed to last 5 years.

And I spent a good while in the kitchen concocting various goodies (shepherd's pie - lots and lots, boiled chick (some shredded and frozen) with some soup from the accompanying veggies, more soup with stock and fresh veggies, and stock for freezer, as well as our first proper "winter" roast beef of the season, and a really lovely long cooking Indian bhuna curry with proper fresh made naans (who knew I could make bread?! ).

This weekend, OH is supposed to come with me to the plot, while my sis takes the toddler for the afternoon on Saturday. We are going to do the digging over of fallow ground for winter, chucking the part composted dalek over the ground and covering with a combination of cardboard and builder's plastic. I am going to plant one bulb of garlic (we'll keep the second for spring planting) as well as a couple of rows of broad beans and a few of peas for over wintering. We'll dig up the last of the potatoes (the Anya pots are still coming and keeping well in the ground, but I want to plant up that bed now for winter) - there should be at least another 2-3 weeks of spuds to come yet. And generally tidy up for the winter, while getting OH's opinion on the brussels sprouts etc (he's grown them before and I haven't) and the sweetcorn (they may be tiny, but I think we may get a couple of ears off them after all).

[BrideXIII]

popped down the co-op to ask about flower buckets. It's all TRUE!!! they just throw them away!
came away with 31 and was told to ask every week and can get about the same each time, RESULT!

bought a few seeds this morning, butternut squash, marrow and tumbling toms, so i am going to cut the bottoms of a few buckets, make some holes in the sides and build a tomatoe tower or two for the patio

[Rhona]

Last night picked the last of the vine leaves and stuffed them with gorgeous sweet spiced lamb and potato; served with basmati rice and a feta salad of first cherry tomatoes, my first outdoor cucumber (nice!) and some mint leaves.

[wellie]

I got up early this morning, and went to attend a Study Group on Steiner, and BioDynamic Culture. It was awesome, and made me think 'completely outside of the box', which I love.

What is it about learning Gardening Stuff that enables you to meet such lovely people???! and I got to wander amongst the top-banana-quality produce with a mug of coffee you could stand a spoon in, and a slice of Stollen.....

Over the last decade of my life, for whatever reason escapes me now, (she lied!) but I've been striving for 'personal bests', and whilst personal goals are truly, truly important, today cemented a more earthy desire within me, and rekindled my hunger for knowledge of what I feel I want to embrace, but don't yet understand.
Does that make sense?

I've had a Great Day Today, and Thank You for listening.
X

[FionaH]

Today I planted bog standard unwin garlic, too many spring bulbs to count, potted up chives and parsley, (new herb tub). Potted up blueberries and strange circular topiary thing. Must find out what its called

[HotStuff]

Today I planted up my first ever strawberries, 5 Elsanta and 5 Honeoye in one of those plastic tower things and also planted 7 different kinds of garlic in the raised beds, got the variety pack from TheGarlicFarm as it's my first year, will be more selective next year depending on the results. Noticed my Nantes Frubund carrots I planted three weeks ago are already showing. Picked some chillies for drying, plucked a few ripe toms to go with dinner tonight and dug up the last of the spring onions to use in a Thai meal tomorrow.

[BrideXIII]

sterilised all the demijohns ready for the big alcohol experiment, and made cheese, will i think its cheese and it doesn't smell aweful.

[pigletwillie]

I cleared a raised bed of gone over spring onions and chard, topped it up with allotment compost and planted garlic.

A second raised bed was also topped up and that was planted with radar onion sets. Further beds were planted with spring cabbage, a few also went into the tunnel so thay will be ready by Christmas time.

A cabbage was cut and chanteney carrots pulled for dinner and last of all a grape vine "Cardinal" was planted outside.

[MrsC]

I went to my newly acquired allotment and begin clearing, managed to cut to ground level 25' x 12' of the 85' x 25' plot in about 2 hours, back tomorrow. My Mum helped.